First Impressions of Gaziantep

So after an adventurous and emotional day in Cappadocia, it's time for us to hit the road again headed towards southeast Turkey. In today's video we explore the culinary capital of Turkey, Gaziantep, which is known for its food, desserts, rich culture, and history. So join us as we once again eat too much food. That is super super good. And eventually make our way to Goldaki Tepe. Don't forget to subscribe as we are only halfway through our road trip around Turkey. You're not supposed to show this part. We are on our way from Cappadocia to Gaziantep and we stopped here in Karamanmaras. Is that right? That's what you say. Karamanmaras. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I apologize. But we are here for one very specific reason. Why are we here girls? For ice cream. This is where Turkish ice cream was invented. So we are here in the heart of the city and we are going to try some of the Turkish ice cream here. What do you think Chloe? Is that good? It's better for sure. Is that the best one you've had so far? So we weren't satisfied with just one ice cream place. We have to go try another one. Of course. Of course. She shoves it down. She doesn't want anybody to know that she's having two ice cream cones today. Are you going to double fist them? Yeah. So what makes Turkish ice cream different is it's made out of goat's milk. Instead of cow's milk. Instead of cow's milk. So this area is the original area where it was invented. It was invented about 300 years ago or so. It has a very different texture and consistency and flavor to it specifically here than the rest of Turkey because they still have that authentic recipe of the goat's milk and the wild salo. Here we got some pistachio and chocolate on top which is really really good. I really like this. As we continue on to Gaziantep, we were so amazed at the beauty of the Turkish countryside we couldn't help but stop to enjoy the views. So today we are exploring Gaziantep which is in the southeastern portion of Turkey. Gaziantep is very well known for its food so we're definitely gonna be eating a lot today that's for sure but there's also just a ton to explore in this city. We have come to the most famous restaurant here in Gaziantep. I'm not sure exactly what we ordered but this is what's this called? Lamakun. This is lamakun. We've had this before. It's really good. It's really thin. Maybe veggies and I don't even know what's on it. It's just full of flavor. It's really really delicious. And then I got the Ali Nazi. It is a pretty famous dish in this region. Turkey seems to have, every city has their own dish. This seems to be the dish for Gaziantep. So it's the lamb kebab. You just kind of dip it all in the yogurt goodness and go for it. Oh that is, I was a little skeptical to be honest. That is super super good. Like I wouldn't expect to dip meat in yogurt like this. I'm rather surprised. It's super good. It's really good. I like that. Oh yeah that would be good if you breaded it. I think they have some dough. They roll it like with your playdough to make a snake and they will spin it around and make it swirly and then somehow make it sweet. So this is tatmer. I'm probably not saying that properly but this is a thin flaky pastry that is made with pistachios. It's very similar to baklava it's just a little bit different. Nuts and pistachios are very common in this region. That's why so many of their desserts have pistachio in them and I think baklava was actually created here in this city. It's really warm. It's really really warm. When you mean warm you mean hot. It's not what I was expecting. It's not quite as sweet as baklava. I think you'll like it more greedy. It's really good. So it's only mildly similar to baklava. I would say baklava is so incredibly sweet. You have the tiniest little bite and I'm personally a dot. I can't eat too much of it but this it's it's I don't know it's just a toned down version of it. Like you could eat an entire plate and not feel too bad about it. I don't think there's too much sugar. I think that's pretty dangerous. Yeah. Much more dangerous than baklava. One bite of baklava and you're good. Yeah that's true. It pairs very nicely with chai or actually milk. They brought the girls milk. What do you think about that girls? Isn't that cool? It's really pretty isn't it? Look at the fine detail. All of that detail is put in by just scratching it with those tools that he has out there. Oh my goodness so we just walked into this little shop and they have these cute little dolls and apparently they are handmade here in Gaziantep by Turkish grandmothers and the girls picked out a little doll and they're really really special. Chloe picked out a little teeny one that she can carry around with her everywhere and Alexa picked out a really special one. I got this one because it has a blue head scarf. Yeah and you love the color blue don't you? Yeah. Hey girls listen I read that the Aladdin shoes for the new Aladdin movie were made in Gaziantep. Isn't that cool? I think one of my favorite things about exploring a new city is to see and experience the life that happens on the streets. Each city has its own unique culture and Gaziantep is more than food. It is such a beautiful city full of bright colors and rich culture. Have you ever seen so many nuts before? Isn't this crazy? Yeah these are all pistachios. I'd like to get some pistachios. Yeah. I think that's a little candy. Can you tell him thank you? You did? Okay so we walked by this amazing looking pistachio shop. There are just mountains of pistachios everywhere. So pistachios are very famous in Gaziantep because they're made locally. Best place to get pistachios so we're definitely going to pick up some pistachios today. Basically you can kind of there's a wide variety of pistachios but super super good. I don't know how to ask to buy. I don't know don't look at me. He says you're very beautiful. You are very beautiful. Have you eaten the pistachio candy that you bought? Is it good? Wasn't that nice of him to give you that? So to keep things real this is what most days look like. Both of us editing all day long. Got takeout food all over the house living in an absolute mess. Suitcase life. No pants. You're not supposed to show this part. It's real life. I know. These videos don't make themselves. I know sorry I'm looking for music right now. And it's taking forever to upload this video. After we finished a bit of work we headed to the Zugma Mosaic Museum and unfortunately forgot to put a memory card in the camera but luckily we had Brady's phone with us because we were very impressed. Can you imagine how beautiful everything that they built back then was? It's crazy. We only can see fragments of it and it's like it's just insane. This is Cheetah the Halfling and it's like they draw him too. Oh wow Cheetah with wings. Alexa did you enjoy the museum? Do you want to come back? When do you want to come back? It seems really weird but I think that was the highlight of Gaziantep for me. That was a really cool museum. It was really really good. They kept the structures like pretty much the way that they would have been seen back in in their day. It was so cool. I loved it and yeah the girls loved it. It was so fun. I want to go there tomorrow. You loved it didn't you? So what I really appreciate is that they kept it here. All of these mosaics were found about 25 miles east. And they were made in the first through fifth century. Yeah so normally something like this this beautiful would have been shipped out to Istanbul or some other popular city. But the fact that they kept it local I just think it's really neat. And maybe we're all nerds but that was the highlight of Gaziantep for me. Alexa asked if she could come back for her birthday which I think is very cool. You guys love museums and I appreciate that. Well we are pushing things a little late this evening but we have one more stop that we really wanted to check out. We are headed to a coffee shop that is built inside of a 500 year old cave. We are in a 500 year old cave tonight drinking coffee. This place is pretty awesome. I don't know what it's called. What's it called? Do you know? I don't think you're gonna like it but I was like where is it written down here in the air? I'm getting really tired. We're gonna have some Turkish coffee and we're just gonna enjoy hanging out in this cave for the evening. So highlight of... wait what was it you were reading? Gaziantep. I'm starting to get confused. We've been in so many cities recently. Um I mean I have to say I don't really remember to be honest everything we've done today it's been a full day but I think the museum. What do you think? What was the best food we ate while we were here? The um the circly dessert thing. That was delicious. Whoa you okay? You okay? Um do you want to get maybe a cement bread and a few other little snacks or what do you think? Yeah whatever you think. Maybe like some of these. Those look good. Buradan popüler. It's so intimidating doing that. I need to learn better Turkish. I'm proud of you though it's really good. You even mixed some Russian in there. Yeah accidentally mixed some Russian in. This whole bag was one dollar. Seriously? Less than one dollar actually. Oh my goodness. How is it that we've collected so much stuff? Because we're in Turkey and the shopping here is incredible. Are you excited to go to Mardin? We're going to live in a mansion. So I hate that we're leaving so soon after really only spending about I don't know 36 hours here. There's so much left to explore and we had to spend most of the time or a lot of the time working and catching up on edits. We're literally driving past a castle right now that we didn't get to go look at. There's just so much left to see. So we are just five minutes away but we're passing through all of these cotton fields. The girls have never seen cotton so we're gonna go check that out. I've seen cotton before. You've never seen it in the fields. Okay let's go look. Whoa it feels just like cotton balls. It's gotta be a lot of work to collect all of this don't you think? What do people use cotton balls for? All kinds of things. We are now heading to Golbeki Tepe. Did I say that right? Golbeki Tepe. And this is one of the this is the place that I don't know how do you explain it? It's hard to explain. So I think this is it's a very recent discovery but it's one of the oldest. It is thought to be the oldest found archaeological site right? I think. This is not the History Channel. No we don't we don't know. We don't really know but it's on our path from Gaziantep to Mardin and we're heading to a really amazing place in Mardin but this is on our way and my dad actually mentioned to us that we needed to go visit this place. We were very excited to see it. We don't know a whole lot about it but we're very excited to check out. It's very very old. What? I want to hear the good news first. The good news is we're at the top. Bad news is it's a bunch of rocks. It's a picture of a horse. It looks like dinosaurs. So we are here at Golbeki Tepe. This is such a new discovery. They have barely just begun unearthing this site. I would say that this is Turkey's equivalent to Stonehenge. It is hard to fathom how old this site is. It is widely believed to be about 15,000 years old. The purpose is not fully known. There are a lot of theories. The mainstream belief is that this was the oldest temple that we have ever discovered. So it's definitely a pretty cool site. I wish I had captured that. We were kind of pushing our way through this school group to get to the other side and the teacher stopped his teaching and in English welcomed us to Turkey. He said I hope you have a good time. I hope you have a good government soon. I hope you have a good government soon. We love your people but you have a terrible government. And he said come and live in Turkey. He says it's much better in Turkey which was awesome. And then the whole class welcomed us and and did a little they as we pushed our way through. It was very cute. It was so sweet. Join us in our next video as we continue our road trip around Turkey and explore Mardin in the southeast of Turkey. Don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you next time.