Trip to Turkey- May 2008

So this post is from quite a while ago, but I did not have a blog then and I wanted to put up some pictures of when we went to Turkey. I was fortunate enough to be the research assistant for this study abroad trip in May 2008... so I got to go for free. Brian was able to come too! We were there for about 14 days and saw some really neat sights. We heard the Muslim call to prayer... it was very unnerving at first, but you got used to it really quickly. We would both love to go back sometime.

We both really loved Capadoccia (the picture with the huge mounds). We got to stay in a hotel where the rooms were inside the mounds. It was beautiful and unlike anything we had ever seen before.

I had to have my head covered during parts of the trip. Any time we went in a mosque it was not required, but would have been considered rude of me not to cover my head. I also found the covering useful when we were in the sun to protect against sunburn. Sunburn was not a problem when we were in the underground city. This is the picture of us that looks like we are in a cave. There was miles and miles of what used to be a big city underground. It was VERY crowded and we definately felt clausterphobic many times. At one point someone yelled behind us that we needed to move the line along because someone was having chest pains... there was no where for us to go. We were smooshed in already (touching everybody on all sides).

Another funny thing was when we were near Ephesus (we did go to Ephesus also... it was amazing to be where Paul was) we went to a heliacropolis (who knew that was a burial ground). We kept smelling something that smelled of rot. Brian thought he was getting swept away by the historical romanticism of the place until he picked up a very beautiful flower (pictured above) that truly smelt like death... it was horrible.

I have also uploaded was is thought to be the last home of the Virgin Mary before her death. Isn't it interesting that the Bible really doesn't give much/any detail about her after Jesus's death.