Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Wow, it really has been a while since I've blogged! I was so busy in December with Christmas preparations, and now it's back to the January calm. In some ways, my Christmas was relatively normal. My roommate's parents came to visit, so at least I spent Christmas with a family, even if it wasn't exactly mine. Christmas eve we went to church like normal, and our living room looked like a disaster area after opening presents, like any other Christmas.


Christmas morning we went to brunch at a friend's house, complete with cinnamon rolls and cheese grits, and then Christmas night my roommate, her mother, and I hosted dinner. Her parents brought a pork roast from America, which her mother cooked up for us. Delicious! I roasted a chicken, and we all made an assortment of traditional sides. We invited 2 Turkish girls who go to church with us, as well, and one of them brought stuffed grape leaves! So it was an interesting feast, but all seemed to enjoy it. We even got to exchange more presents after dinner. Hats and scarves seemed to be the theme.



So what was different this year, you wonder? Well, the immediate difference was that church was both in English and Turkish. We could actually buy any last minute groceries we needed on Christmas day with no trouble, and no one at the stores was wishing us "Merry Christmas." When we went to brunch, the hosting family's neighbors stopped by to see why there were so many foreigners coming to visit, and when brunch was over we broke into some spontaneous Christmas carols, in Turkish, and then read the Christmas story, in Turkish. But you know, I really liked it. It was different, but it was such a warm Christmas. Even when we were fixing dinner, we weren't really stressed out because we knew our guests wouldn't care if we were running a little late. I thought I would be stressed out by visiting with so many people on Christmas day, but I wasn't. It felt so inclusive, so focused on the reason for the season. Maybe I can take some of those traditions home with me.

Holiday celebrations

Don't worry, living overseas we still keep our American traditions alive as much as possible. I celebrated Thanksgiving with my young American friends. We had turkey and all the fixings (including some cranberry sauce mailed from America!). I baked my first apple pie from scratch for the occasion, and everyone said it turned out pretty good. Our friend lent us an artificial tree, and we bought lights and garland for it, as well as splurging on a few Christmas decorations from expensive home stores here. My roommate brought 2 stockings from America, as well. Our neighbors think we're a little weird (we even have a wreath on our door), but what else is new?

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...