Thursday, May 31, 2012

Home Sweet Home (Jerusalem Style)

Well, it's now been a whole week and a half since getting back from the beloved land of Turkey.  But, as much as I loved it, it's great to be back in Jerusalem!  It feels so good to be able to go out again and know that all the locals know (or at least most of them) that you're not just another Western woman.  They know that I live by a higher standard, just as they do, and so they treat me thus.  (Well besides the occasional hormonal teenage boy, but I'm not concerned with them.)  Prior to coming here, I used to see pictures of women in the Near East only letting their eyes be shown, and I would feel so bad for them because I thought that they must be in a prison having to cover up so much.  But now I see that they do it because it gives them so much more freedom!  It lets everyone know what they stand for and that they expect to be treated with respect.  And it works!  They get the respect they deserve because they are portraying to the world that they have respect for themselves.  I think this is a great lesson that a lot of teenage girls could benefit from.  There is so much value in being modest!  It was getting a little exhausting being referred to as the spice girls whenever I was with some of my female, redheaded classmates.  As humorous as it was the first couple of times, I have now come to realize what a great blessing it is when people know what standards you live by.  It gives you much less peer pressure and the gift of being treated with much more respect.  I am so grateful for the wonderful BYU students who have come to the Jerusalem center before me, and have set such a respectable reputation for we "Mormons" here in Jerusalem.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Tales of Turkey

I have returned from the land of Turkey!  And must I say, I didn't realize that it is so totally awesome! I loved it.  I definitely want to go back someday.  So, because it was such a long trip and there are so many things to tell, I thought I might just give a brief overview of each day. :)

Sunday
Sunday morning, at eleven o'clock, we pulled out of the center.  To get through security, we were given very specific instructions that if we were asked what we were doing here and why we were going to Turkey, we were to answer,"I am an American student going to an American University on Mt. Scopus.  I am participating in a 3 month study abroad program in Jerusalem.  For part of the program, we are spending 7 days in Turkey, after which we will we return back to Jerusalem."  This was to avoid them thinking that we should have a student visa instead of a tourist visa.  Well, we got through customs safe and sound.  It was about a 2 hour flight to Istanbul, the capital of Turkey.  We then went straight to dinner which was...interesting.  It consisted of some type of meat/mashed potatoes/eggplant.  Lots of eggplant.  As long as we avoided the eggplant, it wasn't too shabby.  The desserts on the other hand... they consisted of honey, sugar, more honey, more sugar, and who knows what else.  
Walking through some streets in Istanbul on the way to dinner.
Afterwards, we went to our hotel, The Grand Medya Otel.  It was interesting.  The rooms are tiny according the European style.  Not my favorite hotel we stayed at.  It had a questionable feeling.  Some of the girls had a drunk admirer next door to their room who would blow kisses to them outside their door.  But no worries.  Brother Harper, aka Mr. Incredible (as in the Disney super hero), took care of it.  

Monday 

My roommate for the week, Mary Jane, and I in front of our hotel for the first two nights.

Monday morning, we started bright and early.  We went to various different sites in Istanbul including: the Suleymaniye Hamami mosque, the Grand Bazaar, and a Ferry ride down the Bosporus strait.  I enjoyed it all!  The Mosque was so grand and pretty!  All the girls had to wear scarves on their heads to cover their hair, which is considered immodest to show.  One thing about Istanbul: you can see mosques wherever you look.  It's like being in the Salt Lake valley and seeing church houses everywhere you go.  That's how many mosques there are!   And they are not small buildings.  They're very big and very grand which makes the large number of them all the more impressive.
 


 The Grand Bazaar was really fun. It was like glorified shops in the Old City of Jerusalem.  The shops are all indoor, and the floors are very nice.  I bought a cool key chain for 7 lira. But then 2 shops down, I found cooler ones for only 5 lira...dangit!  But oh well, mine is still cool. :)  We had an interesting run in with one of the shopkeepers.  He initially was very friendly, but after being denied the privilege of kissing my friend, L'Angel's, hand, he was not very happy and said some words that I would rather not repeat.
Grand Bazaar!

Gate to the Grand Bazaar!

Next was the ferry ride, and oh my 'lanta it was fun! It lasted for about an hour and a half.  We saw some really neat things.  There were tons of mosques (of course), palaces, multi colored houses, and lots and lots of tree-covered hill tops.  It was beautiful.
This mosque reminds me of a scene in Star Wars 3 for some reason.


Next, we went to the Museum Palace of the Ottoman Empire, called the Topkapi Palace.  It was so cool! I always try to imagine how life would have been like when the palace was in its hay day, and I think it would have been quite interesting.  The clothes were massive!  You probably could have fit at least five of me in just one outfit!  I would have taken a picture, but cameras were not allowed in the exhibit rooms.  I did however, get a picture of the massive bed!  We decided that you could probably fit about 20 people on it.  There were lots of other cool things including 52 karat diamonds, lots of gold, jewels, thrones, and other stuff that I don't know how to explain.  There was so much to see!  We were there for quite a long time.  


Bed only fit for a King!  We figured at least 20 people could fit on that beast!



Next, we went to the underground Basilica cistern.  It was so cool!  They played cool music and lit the columns really well.  If I were a ninja, I totally would have been jumping from column to column, being really sneaky.  I loved it there.  I can't believe that they could build such cool things without the machinery that we have today.  It blows my mind!
So cool!

It had a mystical feel to it.

They used scrap materials to build the cistern.  This is the head of Medusa that came from a Pagan temple.  Legend has it that if you look into Medusa's eyes, you'll turn it into stone.  So they hid her down here so that no one would have to suffer that terrible fate!  Well shoot, I'm history I guess. ;)


Afterwards, we crossed the street to the place of where a Hippodrome used to be, which means that there was nothing to see except for some things that have been put there since then.  One of them is from Egypt!  It's like our Egyptian tower that we have in D.C., except theirs is in impeccable shape still, which really surprised me.  We then went to dinner and back to our hotel, the Grand Medya Otel.  

We could definitely pass as Egyptians.



Tuesday
Tuesday was the start of lots of bus time.  We spent the whole morning driving until lunch time.  This was good because it was down pouring the entire morning!  We were supposed to go to Gallipoli before lunch, but we switched the order because of the rain.  On our way to lunch, we prayed for a blessing on the food and also that the rain would stop so that we could go to Gallipoli.  Well, as we were eating, the down pour turned into a drizzle, and by the time we were done eating, it had stopped raining!!!  So, we got to go to Gallipoli after all.  The Lord blessed us a lot on our trip.  The entire week was forecasted for rain, and it never once rained on us while we were at our sites! (While we were on the bus was a whole other story.)  Gallipoli was really pretty.  We had to catch a ferry at one o'clock, so we only had time to go to the memorial site, but it was beautiful.  There was a little cemetery on the beach that had views that I just could not get enough of!  I'm sad to say that I don't know enough about Gallipoli to feel a great connection with the site, but I respect those that lost their lives there all the same.

Me being all artsy with some headstones at Gallipoli.

The view was so gorgeous!!!!


The ferry ride was really fun!  The rest of our trip was on the other side of the Aegean sea, so our bus had to come with us.  We just drove right onto the boat; bus and all!  It was so fun!  There were some seagulls that were flying by the boat, catching bread that some guys were throwing at them. I guess one eventually ate out of one of their hands!  I missed it though. :(  It was still fun to watch though!
Twenty minutes later, we drove off the ferry and headed over to the city of Troy!  Yes that's right, the place of the famous Trojan horse.  We had a lot of fun there.  The ruins themselves weren't the most spectacular that we saw, but we had a ton of fun posing on the antiquities and inside the Trojan horse! :) After Troy, we loaded onto the bus again and headed to our hotel for the night.  Our hotel was awesome!  It was a small resort on the beach, and we pretty much occupied all of their rooms.  We hung out at the dock, and then they got out some speakers and started a bonfire for us, so we danced the night away on the beach of the Aegean Sea!!!!!!!!!!  Talk about so totally awesome!  Some guys from the resort next door heard the music, so they came over and joined the party.  It was awesome!  The staff of the resort filmed us dancing.  Maybe they'll post it on there web page or something...who knows.  All I know is that I danced my heart out in Turkey!!!


Naps were a great way to pass away the time on the long bus rides.  




Ya that's right!  I was in THE Trojan Horse!

We love posing on antiquities!  Don't tell Brother Jackson!  He'd have a fit. :)


Pillars= picture must!

Wednesday
The next day was full of lots of cool adventures. Our first stop: Assos!  Assos was one of everybody's favorites.  It was so gorgeous!  The temple ruins were really cool, but the best part was that it sat atop a hill overlooking the Aegean sea.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  After taking pictures at the temple ruins, we took vans to the bottom of the hill to the old theatre.  That was really fun.  Brother Huntsman explained to us how the role of the theatre evolved and then acted out a scene of some play that I've never seen.  But, Brother Huntsman is a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so it was still quite enjoyable!
The view = the reason everyone fell in love with Assos. 

Don't mind me. I'm just showing off my stretchy pants.


Me and some of my awesome new friends.  Don't mind the clouds... they're not cool at all....
 Next stop: Pergamum!  Pergamum and Assos are very easy to get mixed up in my mind because they're so similar and we went to them back-to-back, but I still love them both!  Pergamum was awesome!  The main attraction was definitely the ruins of the temple of Artemus. (translated in English as Diana).  It was a gorgeous day as well!  Visiting all these awesome sites has really helped to put into context the environment that the early Christians were living in.  It makes it much easier to understand the context of the New Testament. It makes it seem to come to life, which I've never been able to do when reading the New Testament before.
One cannot help but take pictures of the gorgeous surroundings.

He loves me. I just know it.


After Pergamum, we got onto a bus for another couple of hours.  I enjoyed the bus rides immensely.  They really helped us to get to know each other really well.  Our hotel we stayed at for the next two nights was awesome!  It's called the Aqua Fantasy Otel.  It has a water park, it's on the beach of the Aegean Sea, it has tons of family activities.... and it's only 20 minutes from the ruins of Ephesus!  I think it would be really fun to bring my family back here some day, stay at the Aqua Fantasy, and then take them to see where Paul preached the gospel.  We had a lot of fun at the Aqua Fantasy.  We swam in the pool, hung out on the beach, and laid in some hammocks. :)

Buddies hanging out at the dock on the Aegean Sea.

Thursday
The next day was my favorite day..... the day we visited Ephesus!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was so awesome!  We spent probably half the day there.  I loved it so much!  This site had the most ruins restored out of all of them.  I just can't get enough of all these cool ruins!  

There were an exuberant amount of cats at this site.  This one was just asking to be in a picture.

Yay friends at Ephesus!

This is the exact Theatre where Acts 19 occurred!  We acted it out as a class.  It was not only hilarious, but it was also unforgettable because it helped to make it easier to picture it actually happening.

The awesome public library at Ephesus.

This is my interpretation of what the real statue in the old library would have looked like.  Pretty good if I might say so myself.  Some chinese people were getting pretty excited by it.  Haha

Me in a pretty doorway.  Please ignore the tacky tennis shoes.

Try and figure out where this picture (minus me) can be found.  The angle might be a little off, but it's the same spot!

There were always vendors outside all of the sites trying to get we tourists to buy their goods...or should I say bads?  Well at least they're honest right? :)
After going to Ephesus, everything seemed kind of dull in comparison.  But the views of the beautiful landscape never got old!  We went to Priene next to talk about what occurred in Miletus.  We would've gone to Miletus instead, but I guess they were having troubles with flooding.
I like to think of this as a scene from  the film, Pride and Prejudice with Kira Knightley. :)

Quick! Depth picture!  

This is me eating my first Mulberry, picked fresh off the bush.  Actually it's a tree.  We've been deceived.  But hey, they were delicious!
 Next, we went to the church of St. John and talked about the discrepancies that other faiths have over whether or not John the Beloved is still alive or not.  Luckily, we have the revelation from Joseph Smith that clears any questions about that issue. :)
I love old columns!

And again, I can't get enough of the views!
 After that, we headed back to our Aqua Fantasy hotel, swam, ate, partied, and then went to bed.

Friday.
Friday was a busy day.  First, we drove to Sardis and visited two locations: first, a temple of Artemus.  We listened to Brother Ludlow read and talk about some context of the scriptures, and then took pictures.
These columns are super big!  I just had to get a picture with them! 
Our next stop in Sardis was to an old Byzantine Synagogue and a gymnasium that was right next to it. It was cool, but again, not as cool as Ephesus!

Me on the oldest floor mosaics ever found!

The floors of the mosque were so cool!

The boys of Brother Harper's class think they're so tough.

Girl power in the gymnasium!

Meet the toilets of Turkey.  We like to call them "the squatters".  They do have some regular toilets, so I only had to use one of these three times... but still.... this was a really clean one.... 
 Next, we drove on the bus and went to see the Grand Mosque.  It is currently the biggest Mosque in Turkey.
Me in my scarf.  According to Brother Ludlow, I look like a German in my scarf.  After asking, he said it's a good thing as long as I'm not part of a German Mafia...

Saturday
Well, Saturday was our last day in Turkey.  And it went off with a bang!  It was up there with Thursday.  Why?  Because we got to go see the Hagia Sophia!!!!!!!!!!!!  This is the site that I've been looking forward to most.  I took Ancient Art History of the Ancient Near East, and so I got to learn all about the Hagia Sophia.  I can't believe that I got to go see all these things that I thought would never be more than just a picture in my text book! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Hagia Sophia = coolest place ever!

Cute roommates at the Hagia Sophia

Me posing in the Hagia Sophia

Friends in the Hagia Sophia

This is a lucky hole.  If you put your thumb in the hole, make a wish, and then are able to rotate your hand a full 360 degrees without removing your thumb, your wish will come true!  I believe that I have a new wish that is due to come true. :)

Me standing in the entrance to the Hagia Sophia... as we were leaving.

Ya... we were bored. :)

Dad this one's for you... Turkish sod pallets!

Meet Ricky.  He sold me my pretty blue scarf.  He was very...friendly.  He tried to be my personal tour guide around the shops, but I graciously declined.  But hey, thanks to my "pretty eyes" I got my scarf for a discount! ... Or at least that's what he told me.  He also talked his cousin, who owns a shop similar to his right next door, to sell my friend, L'Angel, her scarf for just 6 lira and some loose change.  It's good to make friends in Turkey.   Haha

This is us inside the Blue Mosque during free time.  Really pretty, but really busy with its decor.  It's a lot to look at.  The Hagia Sophia is definitely superior in my eyes.

In front of the Hagia Sophia

In front of the Blue Mosque.
After the Hagia Sophia, we were given free time to go shopping and/or go visit the Blue Mosque.  Afterwards, we went to dinner at the worst restaurant we ate at the entire week, (I had my first calamari) and then we headed to the airport to await our 1 am flight back to Israel.  It was an unforgettable week!
We ran into Iran's deaf soccer team.  Of course we just had to get a picture with them!

Me and Jamie in the airport, bidding adieu to Turkey.