Turkey!

Little did I know that Turkey has a lot to offer. Istanbul, previously Constantinople, housed the largest Christian empire in history for 1,000 years. Until St. Peter's Basillica, Haghia Sofia in Istanbul was the largest church in the world. It made me think a lot about the apostasy. These people had the idea of temple building, they even had large marble jars filled with olive oil, but they didn't know what to do with them. The blue mosque sits across the street from Haghia Sofia and rivals it in size (although it is smaller).We also went to the largest Mosque in Turkey later in the week in Bursa. The blue mosque has much more ornate decorations than the blue mosque. I didn't capitalize it because they actually call the blue mosque something else as the official title, but people call it the blue mosque because of the blue decorations inside.

We walked around the streets of Istanbul our second night there. I had "the best baclava in the world" and ice cream and turkish delight. Turkish delight tastes like the inside of a jelly bean covered in powdered sugar. It tastes great, but if I were Edmund, I would betray my siblings for a box of See's instead.

We went on quite a long tour of Turkey over 7 days. We visited Troy, Ephesus, Miletus, Assos, Nicea, Bursa, and other places. I enjoyed walking where Paul and John the apostles walked and reading about there journeys in the lands we travelled through. We reenacted the seen where the silversmiths of Ephesus attempt to condemn Paul on the site where it occurred. The ampitheatre still stands. Sting actually performed there once.

Every restaurant we went to had exactly the same food. I know all the varieties and qualities of lentil soup and tasteless sausages. It actually impressed me how they managed to have the same dishes at every restaurant in Turkey. We stopped at a mall type building and I ate Burger King. I noticed that across from the Burger King they had a fast food restaurant that served lentil soup, rice, tasteless sausages, deep fried potatoes, and meatballs without sauce, just like every other place we had eaten at. One of the first nights we ate at a place across from the Bosphorous (the canal that separates the Asian and European sides of Istanbul) and had Sea Bass. A lot of people did not appreciate having their food stare at them. I love fish and I appreciated the break from lentil soup.

We stayed at the nicest hotels everywhere we went. One of the hotels had hot springs piped into a swimming pool. I love hot springs. The pool had a giant man made volcano that sprayed the hot spring water down on us. It got really hot. Some of the pools got so hot you could barely get your feet in. We went up to Pamukkale the day after. It basically served as a tourist attraction for Romans. They have beautiful white cliffs that archaelogists believe expanded under the Roman engineers. They have a series of pools that the Romans routed the hot springs into. Two little asian women asked to have me in a picture with them there. I was flattered :).

I may write more about Turkey later. Feel free to ask questions about it.

I love you all,

Scott