Setting up my winter habitat

My first point of contact in a new city ist often a host from Warmshowers or Couchsurfing. Antalya is no different and when I arrive in the evening, Eren, who will be my host for the next 2 nights, is already expecting me.

Her apartment is small but cozy and located very centrally, in the old town. I park my bicycle in her bedroom and jump straight into the shower. Meanwhile more guests arrive and within the hour the small living room is filled with no less than 7 or 8 people and 2 dogs. Wow! The perks of living right in the center, I guess.

My second host in Antalya is Aziz, an astronomy teacher and couchsurfing superhost, offering hospitality to hundreds of people over the past decade. He offers me to stay in at his place until I find a long-term stay for the Winter, which I do surprisingly quickly--after only 3 nights.

Some weeks later, Aziz rings me. The 10th-grade students at his school are just working on the topic "travel" in class, and asks whether I'm interested in give a speech at his school. on the subject I'm just fighting with a cold, but I'm happy to prepare something for the upcoming week. At first I'm hesitant What to talk about for 20 minutes but soon I realize that the suggested 45 minutes will not be nearly enough.

And so it comes, that I venture to a school on a cloudy afternoon of my stay in Antalya. And I must say I'm quite impressed by the standard: The private school entails everything, from kindergarten to high school. A swimming pool and theatre in the basement. An observatory on the rooftop.

I have lunch with Aziz and another teacher in the school cafeteria and later get to meet the principal and a few other teachers in the teacher's room. Altogether, the atmosphere is very relaxed, almost familiar.

Shortly after lunch, my presentation begins in the theater, where about 50 students have gathered. I show some photos, videos and statistics from my journey. As usual when doing a presentation, the time is not enough and in the end the students have many questions, some are even showing off their German skills, until the teachers urge them to head to the next class.

I must say: that was quite fun!

The term "living like a local" makes people usually think about renting an AirBnB holiday home. I figured it would be easier and more flexible to live in a room share with some locals instead for the few months I'd be staying in the city.

While the apartment I end up moving in to is quite rundown and not too cozy, the location bang in the middle of downtown is perfect: shops and an abundance of restaurants all around, a mall featuring a gym nearby, the tram stop just minutes away.

My room mates (all expats from Iran, Ukraine and Croatia) are friendly and have been in Turkey for some years. Unfortunately most of them do not speak English and I couldn't work up the motivation to learn much more than "teşekkürler", "evet" and "hayır".

I've had a good time staying here, but I'm just as happy to leave!

The rock climbing area near Antalya can easily be reached by car. If you have a car. Which I don't. But luckily I didn't have to take the bicycle but was able to join Eren when some of her friends drove up there.

As I also didn't have any gear with me I just borrowed the harness and did some belaying for Eren who was toproping after her friend had led the route.

Altogether the area made a good impression. It was not too busy and many camp sites are only a few minutes walk away. It was Christmas weekend, the weather was perfect and we spent a lovely day at the crag.

The downside: the good weather was an exception. In fact I witnessed a record rainfall during my Winter stay in Antalya which was one of the reasons why I eventually decided against going to Geyikbayırı for a few weeks.