"With any luck, we'll get lost down here..." (stupidest last words; actual quote)

Yesterday, Jennie and I headed to the underground city at Derinkuyu, which is believed to be the largest underground city in Kapadokya. Underground cities are apparently pretty common here in the region, which early Christians built to seek refuge from the invading Roman armies that would frequently slaughter them.

We enter the underground city, which we discover descends at least 8 stories underground. I position myself very, very carefully over the hole leading to the cave's ventilation system, and take a look down.

As we continue, I discover to my chagrin, that several pathways have been covered with mortar and stone bricks by the Turkish government. In fact, I discover later that only about 5% of the underground city is open to the public. So unfortunately, we don't get lost down there. Of course, I'm not entirely happy about this, but maybe it's for the best. The full underground city apparently spans several kilometers, and was closed off after several tourists like myself got lost in it and died.

On our way back out of the cave, we run into a group of about 5 or 6 Turkish teenagers, who are snapping photos of each other. We gesture to see if they would like to have a large group photo, and when they agree I try to impress them by counting "Bir, iki, üç..." (One, two, three...). Of course, their camera doesn't flash on "three", so I stumble onward, saying "um, um, dört [four]," trying to make a little joke to compensate for the slow camera. They laugh at this, a lot. Later, I recall that the Lonely Planet phrase book mentions that the word "um" translates roughly to a vulgar term for vagina. So I don't really know exactly what they were laughing at. In any case, they agree to return the favor and take a picture of us on our way out.