Our first experience of Turkey was a water park. To mark Steve’s 35th birthday we had to do something unique. Adaland is touted as the biggest aqua playground in Europe (Turkey isn’t part of Europe last time I checked, but they really want to be). They had a good mix of twisting tunnels, speed slides and various pools, all of which were made even more fun, and dangerous, by the apparent lax in safety regulations and enforcement. Steve got some major air on one ramp, so much that you could see sky between his back and the slide. I thought he might actually land on the foliage. Towards the end of our 9 hours we had accumulated a gamut of injuries including lumpy heads, scratched backs, bruised elbows, stubbed toes and sore everything. Luckily the park was closing before we did any serious damage. We even managed to squeeze ourselves into their sand volleyball mini tourney and left unscathed. That night we were exhausted and, after stuffing ourselves with a cornucopia of grilled meats, slept more soundly than either one of us could last remember.
-Mary