A trip to the ancient world

A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to Antioch. Besides being a beautiful city, it was also like a trip back in time in places. It has quite a lot of history! I took over a hundred pictures, but I'll try to keep it to only the best pictures for you ;)

Antioch sits just off the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, surrounded by mountains.


Our first stop was Titus and Vespavius Tunnel, built by the Roman emporers of those names to protect the town from flooding from the mountain. Now there's not much of a river, and we hiked through the tunnel. The hike also included aqueducts, ancient tombs of Lycian kings, olive and orange groves, and valleys full of bay trees and wildflowers. We met some gardeners who made shampoo from the berries of the bay tree.






After our hike we went into town for lunch and stopped by the Orthodox church. It has been there since the 13th century, and Arab Orthodox worship there. The inscription over the gate was particularly interesting.



Then we headed back outside the city again to see the Cave-Church of St. Peter. This cave is thought to be where the church in Antioch originally met in the first century(you can read about them in Acts), and then walls and an altar were added in the 11th century, as well as other architectural details. Being on a mountain, it also had an excellent view of the city. Like the tunnel, the cave-church wasn't the only attraction. A hike on the mountain also brought us to a large well-worn Mary carved out of the hillside. Interestingly enough, supposedly once a carving of Jesus was on her right, and a carving of Charon (Hades' ferry driver in Greek mythology) was on her left. Then, with the help of a local guide waiting to assist the brave, we ventured into a small tunnel built by the Romans for defense. We walked and crawled our way through until we came to a 20-foot shaft with an old-fashioned "ladder," that is, hand-holds and foot-holds carved into the opposite walls to assist your shimmying. Fortunately, I had a little experience on climbing walls, and 2 friends that had done it previously to coach me through.









All in all, it was quite a trip. I would love to go back and do it all again, and there is even more that we didn't have time to see! It certainly gives you perspective to visit something that old--tombs of kings whose names no one knows except a handful of historians, a tunnel that still stands even though the town it served is all but gone, statues barely recognizable, and more tunnels built for troops of an empire that's already been replaced by other governments twice over. It's interesting to climb and hike for recreation where people once did so for work or survival. I'm thankful for all the technological progress we've made, but even those things will, too, pass away. One day all our gadgets will be nothing but a poor substitute for compost, and our names will be mostly forgotten. But when I'm in heaven, I won't care. I'll be more than happy with what I have.

Bravo!

I have been here over 6 months now. I just came back from the corner store. I have been going to the corner store once every one or 2 weeks for about the past 3 or 4 months. Today, as usual, I asked how much my item cost. They prefer exact change, so I repeated back to myself what she said, looked at all my coins, and gave the woman 2.75. When she took it, she said, "Bravo! You learned!" Yes, it only took me 4 months, but I finally am able to comprehend her and give her what she wants in return to her satisfaction. At least they're encouraging...

A Tour of Adana

Recently I went on a tour of Adana. Some of the sights were familiar, but some were new. Here are some pictures from the tour.


First stop was "Ataturk's House." It's a museum where this city proudly displays a house where Ataturk, the founder of this country, stayed a few times in his visits here.

Next to Ataturk's house was a home which wasn't so blessed by his presence and has been left to disrepair.


They call this the "Big Clock." It's old, but I don't know the details.


Then we went to the ethnographic museum where they had an example of a tent used by nomads 2 centuries ago. Reportedly, when you rolled down the walls and door of the goat-hair tent, it had special properties that kept out snakes and scorpions. Since goats quickly destroy vegetation, the main animal that they keep later became sheep instead of goats. I'm rather glad of this fact because reportedly lamb tastes much better than goat meat.


This picture doesn't do justice to its size, but this an entrance to the largest mosque in all of Turkey. You can see it from almost any point in the city.


The interior greatly resembled the famous Blue Mosque, with the main difference being a lack of mobs of tourists. Who needs to go to Istanbul to see 500-year-old mosques when you can come here and see one only 30 years old, and wander around as much as you want?

Pizza! Pizza!

The taste of America has arrived just 3 blocks from my house! And yes, even though they don't eat pig products in this country, there is pepperoni on that pizza I'm holding. It may be made of turkey (the animal, not the country), but it still tasted like pepperoni, which is all that matters. Hooray for globalization.