26 September - Iznik & Jerusalem

Our last half day in Turkey, we went shopping for famous tiles in Iznik. We saw some old city walls and the gates, had lunch, and had a lecture on the shore of the lake where Constantine's palace used to stand.  Near here, the Council of Nicea gathered for the first of seven Ecumenical Councils.  It condemned Arianism and began the formulation of the Nicene Creed, which concluded that Jesus was "of one substance" with the Father, and therefore truly divine. This was so important to modern Christianity. Coooool!!

 

25 September - Sardis & Bursa

This morning we started out in Sardis. We saw temple ruins, and then drove a few minutes to the remains of a large ancient synagogue with beautiful mosaics on the walls and floor.

 

Next was to a mosque, I think this one was also called the Blue Mosque, but it was not blue...before Muslims go in to pray, they wash their hands, feet, face, and arms.

Bursa is the place to buy silk... so we were all on the hunt for ties and scarves. Blake ended up walking out with this checkered jacket for really cheap, haha. Most of the shops were closed after we went to the mosque because of the holiday and it was already around 5:30pm, so nobody got much. I got some earrings for 1tl (36 cents).

24 September - Ephesus & Priene

Oh my gosh Ephesus has been on my list for so long too!!  Unfortunately, we couldn't go until 1:00 because it is a holiday (Hajj), everything wasn't open in the morning. We got to sleep in and go out to the beach at our hotel for a little bit, then we had lunch, then we got to the ancient city of Ephesus. It is beautiful! It was super hot and crowded with people, though.

 Oh ok this photo (above) is from the steps of the library facing all the tourists taking photos. I kind of got in a weird annoyed mood here because it felt as if nobody was looking with there eyeballs and only with their cameras!! They'd just snap a photo then walk past without even soaking it in!! I know I am guilty of being sure to document everything I see and do, but really!! So Blake and I started posing on the steps for all their photos haha!! People were asking, "wait who is taking the pic!?" And I said, "All of them are taking our pic!!" So We just kept posing for everyone's dumb photos out there. It was funny funny.

 

You might recognize this photo from the back of your Bible haha.

Next stop was at Priene which was beautiful.  It was on top of a mountain (surprise), and there were tons of thick pine trees shading the area! The ruins were so huge and beautiful. We didn't have time to see all of it, but we had a little lesson inside this small meeting area, and then I ran up to the ruins in from to this mountain face when the sun was setting on them perfectly. How cool is it that the remaining portions of ruins always seem to be so purposeful and beautiful? These four columns are perfect!!

23 September - Assos & Pergamum

We drove 30 miles south of Troy to Assos.  The city is set on a steep mountain top overlooking the Aegean Sea across to Greece.  It started POURING rain when we got there!  We walked through the cute cobbled roads of Behramkale to get to the top of the hill.

The ruins are of a large temple built to Athena in the 5th century B.C.E. It was amazing. We stood and talked for a few minutes under our umbrellas about how Paul and Luke likely taught the gospel to people here and in the land between here and Troy. It was so wet that my lens was SUPER WET so it wouldn't really focus sometimes. Luckily it wasn't ruined.

Next we went and rode up a tram to the Pergamum Acrololis.  We saw the altar of Zeus, then the steepest ancient theater in the world (with also the best view in the world), and then the Athena temple on the tip top. Fun fact! This altar of Zeus was mostly taken apart and is now reconstructed in a museum of Berlin. MORE FUN FACT - I went there two years ago! So I went and dug up the picture I took of the indoor reconstruction. You can see in the model that it has huge steps leading up to the altar, and there is a large, detailed relief face of figures going around the entire temple. It was really exciting for me to connect these two things! I remember our class in Berlin not being too excited to sit on those steps with our museum headsets to learn about this altar of Zeus that stands on some mountain top in Turkey. Who knew I would be standing there almost exactly two years later!

Also, this theater is so steep it made me scared to stand on it. Our tour guide, Semi, was facing us, so his back was to the drop...and I was anxious the whole time. It is INSANE.

 

Above: Turkey
Left photo: the altar of Zeus as it looks today on the hill
Right photo: the model that is in Turkey at the top of the hill

 

Above: Berlin

Left photo: the model with the reconstruction of the altar in the background

Right photo: sections of the marble relief 

22 September - Gallipoli & Troy

We left Istanbul today. Turns out Istanbul is not the capital city of Turkey, but it is split between the European and Asian continents. Also, part of Turkey is on each continent, and the Bosphorus strait goes between. So we took a ferry and crossed from "Europe" back to the Asian continent. Before we did that, we stopped at the Gallipoli Battlefield Memorial.  This was the site of a famous WWI battle. It lasted for a few months and was on this beach shore that we stopped at.  Basically, the ANZACs (Australia & New Zealand Army Corps) showed up to fight the Turks and showed up on this shore by accident.  The one they were intending to attach had much fewer hills than the one here, and for that reason hundreds of thousands died on each side.  Australians and New Zealanders continue to honor the sacrifice of their countrymen at Gallipoli on ANZAC Day.  The 100th anniversary was this year in April, and so many people wanted to attend that they used a lottery to determine who could go.

NEXT, we crossed the sea and drove down to TROY!!! This ancient city is HUGE and so well preserved!! Actually a German archaeologist was looking for treasure and excavated a huge chunk in a very poor fashion so some ruins are ruined (hehe).  Other than that, we saw the gates, the walls, and the ramp that the Trojan horse was *likely* rolled up (if the story is even true).

We stayed the night in this cute port city called Canakkale.  (The Trojan horse that was used in Brad Pitt's movie was right outside out hotel--he donated it to this city). VERY TIRED NIGHT, but fun to walk along the piers.

21 September - Istanbul 2

The second day of our Turkey trip!! We had breakfast on the roof of our hotel, then headed out on foot into the city. We went to the hippodrome, then to the BLUE MOSQUE!!! I have been DYING to go in here for YEARS!! LOOK AT IT

We did some exploring around the Topkapi Palace, it was really nice and had some cool museums: calligraphy, jewelry, pottery, and ancient artifacts.

 

That's Ryan. He takes really good photos but he shies away from people taking photos of him so I act like his mom and make sure I take a photo of him at all the cool places. His mother will thank me.

We had another fancy lunch, then cruised along the Bosphorus (I took a quick nap...) the views from the water were awesome!! It was nice to get out of the heat (wait, heat? It is NOT even hot here compared to Jerusalem). THEN we went to the GRAND BAZAAR!! (Refer to the opening scene of Skyfall...yeah.)

This is Sarah. She is flawless. Celeste is the other blonde girl who is pictured.