i suck at this.

So...a lot of cool stuff happened between the last time I posted and now. But I'm just going to pick up from yesterday and add the cool things from the last week in later.

Yesterday marked the first day of our excursions around Turkey. Our tour guide wanted us on the bus by 7 in the morning, which was not funny. However, the fact that she completely color coordinates her outfits is funny. She was wearing a purple shirt, purple pants, purple socks, and purple jewelry. Today she was in all grey. And she absolutely adores yogurt. Whenever we stop for food she points out all the places with yogurt. Turkish yogurt is disgusting, FYI.

Anyway. 7 in the morning. We left Istanbul on a tour bus, and not much more but sleeping happened until we arrived at Edirne to see one of the most amazing mosques I've been in. And that's saying something. Because we've seen a whole lot of mosques. This one was built by Sulehman (that's probably not how you spell his name... whatever) who was a really famous Ottoman architect. The inside of the mosque was huge. The point is to make the believer feel really insignificant. It worked. Just saying.

There's something extremely elegant about the pews and stain glass of a church, but the intricate carpets on the floors of the mosques and arching domes with detailed paintings of flowers and geometric shapes certainly hold their own beauty. Mosques are comfortably overwhelming in a way that old European churches can't easily imitate. As a non-Muslim, I can still appreciate how wonderful the architectural design of the mosque at Edirne is. I can still fell a sense of reverence for Allah in the building - a reverence to a God who is my God too.

After Edirne, we traveled on to a World War One memorial. The site was absolutely gorgeous, bordered on one end by the deep blue sea and on the other by yellow cliffs and hills with short bracken and shrubbery. It was refreshing to sit on the beach and watch the sea, but also hallowing to know that thousands of men had died on the same beach. Turkey is relatively overlooked in our history class discussions of WWI, but the same sorts of horrors seen by the British, German, French and American soldiers that we normally hear about were seen by the Turks as well. There was a memorial at the sight that shared the words of Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic - the inscription read something like, Those sons that died on our land are now our sons. They rest in honor as sons of our country.
...or something like that. It was much more elegant that I remember...

After the war memorial, we went to Troy. Wait backtrack. First we saw the Trojan horse that was in the movie Troy. BRAD PITT WAS ON THAT HORSE. No worries, I have pictures to prove that I saw it. It was a thing of beauty.
And then we went to Troy.
The actual Troy was pretty generic as ruins go. There were the remains of houses and temples and shopping areas. What made the visit so exciting was my previous knowledge of the legend of Troy, having read both the Iliad and the Aeneid. It was fun to imagine the stories of Priam, Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Menelaus, Achilles and Patriklus play out in the ruins.
And of course I quoted the movie. Because I adore that movie. And I know the best quotes by heart.

The Turkish countryside is breathtaking. It reminds me strongly of the tiny bit I've seen of Tuscany, only the colors are more muted. The mountains are framed by blue sky and are covered with pine trees. The sea shore is rocky and the islands are green. The water is varying shades of turquoise. There are deltas and peninsulas that jut out into the seas and channels.
...this is hard to explain. I'll post pictures.

I hope you are all well, and continue to stay healthy and happy. All my best!