I’m crocheting again, making this vertical stripe scarf in a deliberately bright gay rainbow pattern. I wasn’t able to find any decent rainbow scarves that I liked, so I went to the store and bought yarn to make my own. (I have a few half-balls of primary colors, but I wanted to get a good matching set.) Unfortunately none of the soft and lush yarns came in all six colors that I needed, so I ended up with good old Red Heart (or was it Caron?) sport yarn. It’s not super soft, but I think it will be okay for a winter scarf.

I haven’t crocheted anything in a long time, much less started a new project. I think the most recent thing I crocheted was a couple of years ago when I worked on little dresses for our American Girl dolls; I ended up making one and a half dresses - and the half-a-dress is still sitting around in my closet. This scarf should go pretty quickly, though, as I’m using a P hook. It’s probably about nine feet long, though; once I’d made the chain and started doing the first row I stood up and wrapped it around me - it’s going to be a big scarf! I have no idea how many stitches are in the chain, I’m just doing two rows of each color and then a border in either white or black (haven’t decided yet).

Cappadocia Day One

Now that we’ve come inland a bit, it’s easier to get away with wearing only one shirt. In the larger coastal cities, if we wore just a turtleneck or t-shirt all the men stared at us. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t happen to the older women in our group. We’ve found ourselves wearing a sweatshirt or other overshirt in addition to whatever else we’re wearing; my girlfriend noticed even the local girls who don’t cover their hair still layer their clothing as we are. They don’t seem to stare as much in Cappadocia, fortunately. I was glad to see a variety of cereals at breakfast. They still had corn flakes, but they also had sweetened corn flakes, a granola-type cereal, and a few I couldn’t identify. Unfortunately the orange drink is only almost bearable, as it’s obviously Tang. We went to the Göreme Open Air Museum in the morning. I was impressed by what the ancient Christians could do with a piece of rock, but felt antsy the whole time. Lunch was awfully boring; our guide later said it used to be a good place but apparently the management changed. In the afternoon we went to one of Cappadocia’s numerous pottery factories. We were given a demonstration of how they make the painted plates, and then we were taken for a demonstration of their red clay work. When the artist had finished making a teapot, the factory guide asked for a volunteer. Nobody else was speaking up, so I went ahead and raised my hand. He gave me a pair of clown-type pants, in orange and of course way too big for me. I couldn’t kick the wheel and follow instructions at the same time, so the artist kept the wheel going and helped me make the shape. I’m not sure what I was supposed to be making, but because of the hole in the bottom we decided it was a flowerpot. By the time I got my hands scrubbed clean, the group had moved on to the “we gave you a tour, now buy our expensive stuff” room. We liked a lot of the pieces (including an Artemis statue about 5 feet tall for nearly $8000), but just couldn’t afford any of it. After dinner most of the group went to a folklore night, which included native dancing and belly dancing. The native girls had several beautiful costumes, and I noticed they made noises similar to those the Hungarian girls made when we saw the Hungarian dance performance. They didn’t seem to be calling to each other as the Hungarians did, but the noise was the same high-pitched trilling. The belly dancer wasn’t very good, but she recruited a member of our group and a Chinese tourist for a play lesson - she made both of them take off their shirts and imitate what she was doing. The drinks were free, so in addition to peach juice and lemon Fanta, I also tried a bit of raki, an alcoholic drink made with anise. It smelled like licorice all right, but it tasted awful. In about the middle of the show, the native dancers pulled everybody out of their seats and tried to lead us in a dance. It was mostly chaos, but I finally recognized it as a hora.