Folk festival

Today we had a day-off.  A couple of days ago a reporter had come to the field and had told us about a folk festival up in the mountains.  It was really cool to go up there and mingle with the locals.  In Istanbul, there are people that speak English and it's very touristy.  Alanya is also touristy.  Gazipasa isn't very touristy (although they are trying to boost that part of the economy) and basically no one speaks English.  However, the festival we went to was all locals in a village up in the mountains and we were really immersed in the culture.  One thing that I found funny was that one vendor was selling cowboy hats (made in China).  They had games and such going on and at one point they were playing tug of war.  It was a nice way to spend a day off.  Professor Townsend has been to this area for many years and this was his first time to the top of these mountains -- it was a good reason to make our way up there.