11th June 2008
Kristina’s Highway to Hell Tour – 2 days in Kusadasi
Well, I have two days off in Kusadasi, party central and one of my favourite places in the world. What to do? I think I’ll get up and make sure all my passengers get on their Ephesus tours at 8am and then go back to bed, as I’m buggared from the 14 hours day I’ve just worked yesterday. Yes, I’ll do that. I managed to haul myself out of bed at 1:30pm! I sat by the pool and Alicia found me and came and chatted to me for a bit. Greg, one of the tour leaders who is going to Greece also found me and the three of us hung out by the pool for the rest of the day.
We decided to go out to Jimmy’s Irish Bar for the night, as Joe was also coming into Kusadasi to go to Greece too. Joe’s heaps fun, this is going to be a good messy night I thought. Me, Greg and Alicia went for a wander into town to get Starbucks of all things….ah civilisation, I’d forgotten it even existed as I drank my Java choc-chip Frappuccino. I don’t know why I now like coffee, I never did before, perhaps it’s the job! Starbucks is right on the waterfront, so we sat by the Aegean and drank coffee, it was a really good view and a chilled out vibe. We then went back to Kusadasi Inn and Greg went to meet his group, not before changing his name to “Yes please” which I found really funny as that’s what the hasslers call out at you and this is now how Greg answers his phone.
At about 6pm I had to help one of my passengers with his itinerary, so I did that and then dragged him off to Jimmy’s with us. His name was Paul, and he was from New York. So, me Paul and Alicia, went and met Joe and Greg at the bottom of the hill, grabbing roadies on the way.
Greg told us we shouldn’t drink on the street which made me and Joe laugh, especially me with my ‘roadie shorts’ (a pair of cargo shorts with pockets on each leg each big enough to hold a can of JD & Coke). We got to Jimmy’s and the soccer was on and Turkey won so this made it an awesome night as it was packed! The last goal was scored by a heat butt and the place just went nuts. After the match the music started, which was much better than last time. Alicia started buying cocktails and getting me to help her drink them, we had so much fun, I got up and danced on the speaker box again, Alicia is 6’3 so she started joking that I could actually look her in the face up there.
The speaker box at Jimmy’s now holds no glory for me so then it became, “Dare me to dance on the Bar?!” So up I got on the Bar at Jimmy’s Irish pub, full Coyote Ugly style and started dancing on the bar. I was up there for most of the night. Greg piked out at about 2am and Paul at about 3am, so it ended up just being me, Joe and Alicia.
As the night wore on the music got better and better, I vaguely remember dancing to “The Best” by Tina Turner with Joe before being evicted from Jimmy’s at 5am. We ended up at the beach and I ended up in the Sea, as I always seem to when I’ve been to the pub and there’s water nearby, reminds me of my good old Coogee days and singing “Kiss me I’m shit faced” in the Ocean opposite the Coogee Bay hotel….good times.
We walked back to the hotel, despite Joe’s constant whinging about paying for a cab. We got back to Kusadasi Inn at about 7am and we all went back to Alicia’s room and all three of us collapsed into her single bed. I managed to have enough sense to set my alarm, so I could wake her up in time to get her transfer. I went back to my own room and slept until about 2pm and then went out for a manky kebab which I didn’t end up finding and ended up at Pizza Pizza again. I went back to the hotel and went in the pool after walking up the mammoth hill yet again and waited for Bridget to get in. She got there about 9:30pm and we took some of her passengers out for the night.
I remember walking down the hill again, thinking how did I get roped into this? I had to go as Bridge couldn’t remember how to get down to the town. We took her passengers out for manky kebabs and then most of the went back to the hotel as they were doing Ephesus the next day but Craig and Dan stayed out with us. Craig only wanted one beer as he wanted to get up early the next day, so I resolved to leave with him and not have another big night as I am taking the bus to Koycegeiz tomorrow. We went to Jimmy’s but it was empty, so I took them to Angels, where we had the old free shot and 2 4 1 cocktails, we moved on and went to another bar and had the same again and I got up and danced on the podium, which also had 7 year olds on it….weird. Craig managed to drag me out of the pub at about 1:30am and I walked him back to the Kusadasi Inn. My only regret for my two days off was those kids stayed out later than I did!