Three Days Alone in a Foreign Country

Well not quite alone, but my host family has already decided that they don't want me. The last three days have been unrestricted and free. I had the choice to go to Bodrum whenever I wanted to jump a bus (which stops right outside of my house) Vedat and Nural actually thought going into Bodrum on my own is a great idea. Yesterday I walked out the gate and at the same time my friend Pamir was driving by with her mother. They yelled at me to hop in and tour Bodrum a little with them. I found out that its going to take a lot more courage to visit that huge maze of shops alone than I thought it would. The streets, if they deserve such a lofty term are full of twists and turns so you cant see more than 5o feet ahead of you. The sky is obscured in most places by huge grapevines that blot out all direct sunlight leaving just shade and the slight sea breeze blowing through these man-made wind tunnels. But there is a cleaner feeling to these streets than you'd think. People are sitting at little 2 person tables eating, resting, or just talking in Turkish. The streets are packed side by side with shops, most of them more like a gas stations than stores. But the rest of the shops sell everything, from the latest Vans, to old DVD's from the '80s. Tomorrow I am fully planning on going in the morning (1:00 pm) and staying for hours, just wandering and finding what trouble I can.
I found out that Bodrum is more than just a central town with 10 or 15 outlying towns. It truly is a system of interconnecting towns who just center around Bodrum proper because of its bay. There are buses that travel from one town to the next and tour each city they touch. Its my ticket to freedom. Its cheap and easy and gets me wherever I need to go.
Today I had a lesson in true hospitality and Turkish custom. In America, people will offer to help whenever needed, allow people to go to their house whenever convenient or give out invitations to dinner. This graciousness is part of our custom, but most of the time they are not truly sincere. When I got to Turkey everybody told me I should just give them a call if I ever need help and a few of them told me to just come on over and join them for a meal if I was hungry. I did not take these very seriously as an American, but yesterday I received a call from Sabrii (the owner of the restaurant who I challenged to a hamburger making contest and Vedat's father) asking me why I hadn't come down there. Its about half mile walk and when he told me to just come down and he'd make something for me, he wasn't lying. He truly meant that whenever I'm bored or hungry I can just walk or ride the bike there and order whatever I want. Its truly amazing and helpful that he would not only offer that service to me, but to my friends, and we are even recognized by the people there when he is absent.
I took off on the bicycle today just to see where my road ended and found out it just fades away after about 2 miles. I rode right past Sabrii's, past the massive beach hotel out to where normal people hit the beach. I kept going past them, just out of curiosity. Eventually it turns into a rocky goat path that winds along the beach for a few miles until merging with the main road. I took a lot of pictures of this and as soon as I get a photo editing program on my computer, I will put my panoramas together and post them. The pictures are amazing