The Second Trip, Part I

Oha. There's lots to say, so I'll be telling you about the trip over a couple of entries.

We left Istanbul at 8 pm on Friday night. Our bus turned out to have just enough room for all of us, though our stuff was piled to the ceiling in the back! We drove all night and arrived in Konya the next day.

Konya is famous for the whirling dervishes who originated there. We visited the Mevlana Museum (pictured) and then checked into the hotel.

Day two started bright and early with long drive to Antakya (which you might know as Antioch). We arrived mid-afternoon. It is important to note that Antakya used to belong to Syria. Many years ago it became independant for a short time before joining Turkey. Syria does not recognise this union, and so if you asked a Syrian, I have been to Syria. Check out the lisence plate!

First we visited a mosaic museum. There were mosaics over ten feet tall! They depicted garden scenes and gods and fish and geometric paterns and writing.

After that it was off to the first Christian church, the Church of St. Peter. It was a cave in the hillside with a brick front and only an altar inside. I got dripped on taking this photo! Here's the view from outside the church:Then the guide offered to take us somewhere not on the itenerary. We visited what was once an iron gate. It required a bit of hiking to get to, but there were goats!

This is where I called my Mom from on Mothers' Day!

We checked into our hotel on the edge of town, and settled down for a quiet evening... that was interrupted when a baby bird fell out of its nest on our balcony and chased Garet through our open door into the hotel!

Multiple rescue attempts were made with the chick, and around 10 pm that night, it was back in the nest thanks to us! Although our chaperon had told us it would just get pushed out again, it was still in the nest come morning. We even watched the mother feed it! Hooray!

Monday was Gaziantep. On our way we passed a huge field of poppies and begged the driver to stop for photos.

The special thing about this field is that it's a farm. In Turkey growing poppies for medicinal purposes is legal. Who knew?

Gaziantep had the old market as part of our tour. We checked into the hotel early, and our chaperone was upset to find that Carly's and my room was larger than his. He would leave only to stomp in again several minutes later, look around, glare at us, and stomp back out. Carly took to saying things like "it's still bigger!" when he came in. It became a running joke throughout the trip. From that night on he was able to find something better about our room. Better wifi, bigger bathroom, softer beds, nicer view out the window..

So I suppose I'll stop there for today. It's looking like I'll split the trip into three large entries, although if you thought this one was too big, I can make smaller ones. Just tell me what you want!

-Maeghan