Turkey (Annie)

I'm back from Turkey, and it was fantastic! I've never imagined that I would end up visiting Turkey, of all places, but now that I have been there I am very grateful to have had the opportunity. Turkey, like any country, has rich traditions, history, and culture and it was wonderful to get a glimpse of that.

Monday, and every day for that matter, was busy We went to the Topkapi Palace first, which is where where the Sultan used to live. Now it's a museum, and we got to see the Sultan's clothes and various religious relics, such as bits of Muhammed's hair and Moses's staff.

 Next was the Basicila Cistern, which is a massive cistern built in ancient times to hold millions of gallons of water. It was damp and dark and quite a contrast from the heat and bustle of the street above.

Later we saw the Hippodrome, which is similar to a race track. There wasn't really anything left of it. Finally, we went to the Blue Mosque, which was the crowning event of the day for me. It is beautiful! They decorated it with beautiful blue mosaics (hence the nickname Blue Mosque) and Arabic calligraphy.

Afterwards we went to the Grand Bazaar, which is a massive structure housing hundreds of little shops all selling pretty much the same thing. This is where I finally got to try Turkish Delight! It was so good!

Also, we found this ice cream that Neil was determined to get, and we were PUMPED. It's chewy! That's right. This is after we found it:

That evening we on a boat ride down the Bosphorous strait, which separates the Asian and the European sides of the Istanbul from each other. We got to see a lot of Istanbul and it was really great to see it from a boat rather than a bus. Neil, Shawn and I all wore the fezzes that Shawn bought for us and we were, and I quote here, "so cute!" I'm sure Neil and Shawn really appreciated that.

Tuesday we drove to the Galipoli Battlefield Memorial, which is where thousands of New Zealand and Australian soldiers died trying to take Istanbul in the First World War. It was a sobering moment. It was a little sad to see the graves lined up side by side on an otherwise picturesque beach. The Turkish government honored them there, and it was comforting to see that they cared for the men's lives even though they were fighting on the other side.

We then took a ferry ride across the Dradanelles which was really cool, since the bus drove right on to the boat. I'd never been on a bus on a boat before. I guess I can check that off my bucket list :)

To top off the day we went to Troy, which was essentially a mass of ruins that were built on other ruins that might have been built on the original Troy. It was much smaller than I anticipated, probably because most of the ruins have not been dug up. We saw the city and the big Trojan Horse that they had there, which was actually the one used in the movie.

 It was also here in Troy that we started our tradition of sprinting back to the bus from the site so that they wouldn't leave us, which they threatened to do on a number of occasions. Neil and Shawn loved to push it to the last minute. It was nice to get our blood pumping between the long bus rides. I'm sure we were also entertaining watching us from the bus.

On Wednesday we went to Assos, which is this little city up in the mountains of Turkey. It is one of the places Paul visited when he was preaching. We bought a scarf from this adorable old lady. Assos was really nice because there weren't any tourists and it was a cute little town in the mountains with cobblestone roads and houses. Also, a monumental event occurred here that will forever live in my memory: we saw our first ever Turkey in Turkey...it was awesome.

Later we went to the Pergamom acropolis, where we crawled over the massive ruins there. The theater there is the steepest I saw in Turkey, and it would've been a great view in ancient times when it was used. Peramum is on top of hill and you have an amazing view of the surrounding territory.

Later we went to Ephesus, which is a famous tourist site and city from the New Testament. There we saw the enormous stadium, the reconstructed library facade, and a ton of cats.

The next few places look pretty similar, so I'm going to skip over the specifics of Sardis, Miletus, Thyatira and Iznik to go straight to the best one: the Hagia Sofia.

This is a catholic church turned mosque turned museum. As a result, it has an interesting mix of a lot of different cultures. There were originally mosaics of Christian scenes all across the walls. When the Ottoman empire conquered Constantineople (and named it Istanbul) they covered the Christian art with plaster, which ironically enough preserved it rather than destroyed it, and replaced it with Islamic art. So today we see Islamic art along with some of the mosaics where the plaster has been cleared away. It's really amazing.

So that sums up my trip to Turkey (finally)! It was a BLAST, and I got to be very close with the people in my group. Enjoy!