Travellop – Travel Blog

The Mardan Palace, a $1.4 billion luxury resort, was unveiled just the other night at an opening party in Antalya, Turkey. The turnout of the party included over 600 international dignitaries, as well as celebrities. The guests were able to dine on top of the Mediterranean’s largest swimming pool and enjoying some great performances from Tom Jones and Mariah Carey. Some guests that showed up at the grand opening of Mardan Palace included Paris Hilton, Sharon Stone, and Richard Gere.

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) — Turkish head of the Olympic delegation Mehmet Atalay said Wednesday when arrived in Beijing that the country’s athletes would try to grab five golds and more than ten medals at the forthcoming Beijing Olympics.

“Beijing Olympic Games is a very important sports event and that’s why we attache so much importance to the Games and send our biggest ever delegation to participate in”, Atalay said in an interview with Xinhua at the airport, expressing his hope that the country could win more medals than it did four years ago in Athens.

Turkish athletes won 10 medals, including four gold, three silver and three bronze medals, in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Atalay, who is also the head of the Youth and Sports Directorate, added that weightlifting and wrestling would be Turkey’s trump cards.
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The 6th International Turkish Olympics continue apace, with the finalists chosen in Ankara set to receive prizes in a large ceremony to be held tonight at the Istanbul Gosteri ve Kongre Merkezi (performance and congress center).

The students participating in the competition are diverse, from different nations and walks of life. But the common link between them is Turkish — and not just the language, but elements of the culture as well.

Some of these students know how to make cig kofte (a traditional food from southeastern Turkey), others are interested in the traditional Turkish art of ebru (marbling), and a few can sing and dance a Turkish folk dance (atabarı) just as well as, if not better than, their Turkish counterparts.

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