I told you it looked like Denver

Exhibit A: Photograph taken from a moving car (not too shabby, my little point-and-shoot) of one of the mountain ranges (foothills, really) surrounding Isparta. Note the brown hillside, granite landscape, low green shrubbery, and all around dryness. It could also pass for certain regions of the California valley, I suppose...but I'm still thinking Colorado. More pictures to come.

A bit about Isparta, for those of you who are curious. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Isparta is about an hour and half north (2 hours by car) of Antalya, a Mediterranean paradise. A local described Isparta to me as a transition zone between the Mediterranean and the dry, mountainous region of Anatolia, where places like the capitol, Ankara (not Isatanbul, people!), are located.

Some quick facts: The population ranges from 175,000 (posted on the sign coming into the city) to 250,000 (posted on Wikipedia). The student population at my university is around 40,000 alone (!!) and so the population really fluctuates in the fall and spring. The elevation is about 1035m/3395 feet, but since it's so close to the sea, it doesn't get as cold as some of the inland cities, though it may snow occasionally. My colleague, for example, has to deal with -40 ºF temperatures in her city, the name of which I can't remember at the moment (Leanna? I know you're reading this! Why don't you comment and tell us the city and verify the temperature? :)

What do people do here? Well, it's a college town, so a lot of commerce revolves around the students: shopping and cafes, which makes the city much more cultured and interesting, because there's actually a decent downtown area with some great eats. Then there's a lot of carpet making in the region. But what the city is really famous for is rosewater production. Another name for the city is actually the "City of Roses." There is a big rose festival in May, and there are lots of shops with rose lotions and products, as well as rose bushes lining the streets. Lovely.

That's the quick overview. One last thing--there's no airport here, though there used to be. There's an overnight bus connection that'll get you to Istanbul in 11 hours (yeah, I know: Ouch), or you can catch a plane from the Antalya airport. But as for the airport, Wikipedia had this and only this to say: On November 30, 2007, an Atlasjet McDonnell-Douglas passenger jet with 57 people on board crashed on approach to Isparta airport. All aboard were killed."

I'll take the Antalya airport, thank you!