Turkey Day 5: We went to Ephesus!!! Paul preached here. It was a massive city with so many amazing ruins! It was similar to Petra. Above is the remains of the Library. Below is me posing with the picture of Ephesus in the Bible.
People asked (and I always wondered) if I would ever get bored of seeing so many ruins. Well, I don't get bored of seeing them, but I definitely got bored of taking pictures of myself with them. Chaille and I decided to get a bit more creative with the next picture from the temple ruins at Prienne. It ended up being really awkward, and slightly cool.
Day 6 was the temple at Sardis and below that the gymn at Thyatira. It was raining hard and was really cold, but these were awesome sights! It amazes me how there are so many ruins of ancient buildings just chilling around these countries.
Can you guess what this is? This is the WC--water closet. That is the European term for bathroom (bayan is Turkish for women). I had no idea how many different kinds of bathrooms I could use in 4 months, but I have definitely used more than I wanted. This one was my personal favorite. It was a tent with squatters that costs 1 Lira (about 50 cents). Most of the toilets outside Jerusalem cost money. If you don't know what squatters are, don't look them up. Just know that it's gross and I'd do anything for an American gas station toilet these days.
On our last day we went to the small Hagia Sophia where one of the Nicean Councils was held. Below is our reenactment of that. It was actually a wonderful experience. We talked about how the political leaders created the Nicean Creed, which established the nature of Christ as one God--the trinity. I was thinking about this and can say from experience that you don't have to trust the ideas of political leaders to know the nature of Jesus Christ. You can pray and find out for yourself. If you are sincere, you will get an answer.
Finally we made it back to Istanbul to see the incredible Hagia Sophia from Constantine. It was originally a Christan church, but was later converted into a mosque. Today it is a museum. Seeing this church has been my dream for a long time. I was amazed as always.
After the church we were set free to explore. It was late, cold, rainy, and we were just plain tired from the long week. We struggled to find a place to get warm and ended up in this pub. We bought a little mug of hot chocolate for 8 lira. We got ripped off (we found a McDonalds after), but it was a fun experience and made for a great story.
On the way back to the Bus we stopped to take a picture in front of the Blue Mosque from earlier in the week. It was almost like Disney World.
Then we stopped for a picture with the tulips. Did you know tulips come from Turkey, not Holland?
Our dinner was fish. It wasn't bad, but the bones freaked me out and I couldn't get past the fact that it was literally a fish.
Finally, after an incredible week, we arrived at the airport for our red eye flight back to Israel. We had to say goodbye to Negip, our amazing tour guide for the week. He was amazing and it really was sad to leave him and the incredible country of Turkey.
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