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Weekend Getaway in Bolu

January 21, 2013

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Our secondary students took their finals at school last week, and everyone got the day off on Friday. With the long weekend, we wanted to find a cheap place nearby to escape the city. Fortunately, a cabin was available at a mountain retreat in Bolu. Bolu is a two-hour bus ride northwest of Ankara. Some of our friends visited there last year and loved it.

The place we stayed at is called Sakintepe. The eight of us shared one of their four-bedroom cabins. We spent most of the time chilling in the living room and kitchenette area. The heated floors made our stay extra warm and cozy!

The view of the snowcapped mountains was wonderful.

We also loved hanging out with Bear, their German Shepherd puppy and his mom Georgia and dad Montana.

It was a weekend of both rest and work. Our grades for the semester were due Saturday at midnight. Several of us had new classes for the spring semester and were able to get a good amount of prep work done. It was nice to work by the wood burning fireplace.

We were sure to take a break and walk around the forest.

The dogs loved having new friends to play with. The guys spent a lot of time throwing snowballs to Georgia and Montana.

Montana was a funny dog. He carried around rocks as though they were chew toys. He also had a game where he took a rock, rolled it around to create a snowball, then pawed at it till he got back down to the rock.

On our last night, the caretakers of Sakintepe let us borrow their projector. The ceiling was a perfectly slanted canvas. We kicked back and enjoyed a couple of movies.

We highly recommend the cabins at Sakintepe and hope to visit Bolu again.

But for now, it’s back to school and onto the spring semester!

Celebrating the New Year in Istanbul

January 6, 2013

David

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On our way back from Christmas in the States, we stopped in Istanbul for three nights. We stayed at Side Hotel & Pension. Especially considering the holiday, Side was fairly affordable. Although the room and the breakfast were simple, the location was perfect. The terrace offered a view of the Bosporus Strait, the Sea of Marmara, Hagia Sophia, and Sultan Ahmet Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque).

Sultan Ahmet Mosque

Not too far from our hotel was Topkapı Sarayı. This palace, dating back to the Ottoman Empire, was a home to several sultans over a period of several hundred years. Today it is a museum with rooms and rooms of historic items. The buildings are beautiful inside and outside. We would have liked more time to see the relics and artifacts, but the crowds were unbelievable due to the holiday. On a side note, there was a Chinese exhibit and we got to see four terracotta soldiers and a horse.

Topkapı Palace Entrance

Beautiful ceiling artwork in Topkapı Palace.

We also visited Sultan Ahmet Mosque. It is commonly referred to as the Blue Mosque because of the blue tiles that decorate its interior. It was built by Sultan Ahmet I and is a major tourist attraction in Istanbul. Because the mosque is still in operation, Leah was required to cover her head.

Inside the Blue Mosque

On New Year’s Eve Day, we walked a few blocks from our hotel to The Grand Bazaar. (The Grand Bazaar was featured in the opening scene of Skyfall, the new James Bond movie.) The Grand Bazaar is said to be the world’s first covered shopping mall with construction dating back to 1455. It has 60 streets, 5,000 shops, and sometimes as many as 400,000 visitors a day. We did a lot of looking, got some coffee, and purchased our 2012 Christmas bulb.

For New Year’s Eve, we decided to try the local fish. Many restaurants had all-you-can-eat New Year’s packages that ran €100 or more. After perusing around the Galata Bridge area, we found Odessa Restaurant. We were pleased with our service and the fish was tasty. We found ourselves trying to recall the deboning skills we acquired at the Wisconsin fish boil with my family. Our waiter was hospitable and offered us a complimentary dessert. We were impressed by the affordability. Since Leah doesn’t like to stare at fish heads, they even removed the head off her fish before serving.

After eating, we made our way to Taksim Square. Taksim is where many Turks celebrate the New Year, kind of like Times Square in New York. After walking several blocks shoulder to shoulder with the crowd, we decided being there for a few minutes was enough and headed back near the Galata Bridge.

Although the fireworks did not launch from where we thought they would, we watched other fireworks over the Golden Horn set off by some of the local restaurants. There’s no ball drop in Turkey – we had to keep an eye on our watches for the count down!

While in Istanbul, we were also able to meet up with some friends. We were happy to fellowship with Mike and Sharon, who recently moved to Turkey. We were also excited to learn Kennie and Lizzy were visiting Istanbul. We met them this summer at training. They are teaching in Kenya and visited Turkey over their Christmas break.

We enjoyed exploring Istanbul and getting some rest before we headed back to Ankara to resume school.

A Benedict 2012 Infograph

January 1, 2013

Leah

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Happy New Year’s Day!

We flew back to Turkey on December 28 to give ourselves some time to get over jetlag before school started. We spent the past few days in Istanbul and came back to Ankara this afternoon.

We’ll hopefully have a few posts about our Christmas and New Years up soon. For now, here’s an infograph of our 2012! I saw several great year in review designs on Pinterest, and was inspired to design one for ourselves.

Iyi Bayramlar: Selçuk and Izmir

November 5, 2012

Leah

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I like what one of our friends said about travel in Turkey. Let me try to paraphrase: “Being able to travel here is like a gift from God. He knows we need the breaks from work and makes it easy and cheap for us to get around.”

In our previous blog post, David talked about day 1 and 2 of our trip in Izmir (Smyrna!) and Ephesus. We spent the first part of day 3 in Selçuk. Selçuk has several ruins, including a Byzantine aquaduct in the center of town. We also walked up to the citadel, though we didn’t pay to go inside. The Basilica of St. John is within the walls.

Byzantine Aquaduct

Selçuk Citadel… a castle with palm trees!

The weather was warmer than what we’d been having in Ankara. It was a beautiful place to walk with palm trees, mountains, and beautiful flowers still in bloom.

As we explored, we came across a Turkish rug store. There was a lady weaving outside the door, and we stopped to watch. One of the store employees greeted us (in English!) and brought us in for a rug presentation. They unrolled maybe 30 rugs, talking about the different materials and patterns. Since none of us had any intentions of buying a rug, we were a little nervous and didn’t want to offend the man. I think business was slow that day and he was just being kind. The store also served us yummy apple tea.

The man told us silk on silk is the most durable rug structure and the rug outside Topkapı Palace in Istanbul is silk on silk. It was really neat to see how they “harvest” the strands of silk. A machine pulls the silk from cocoons.

Once we had explored all we wanted to in Selçuk, we took a dolmuş ride to Kuşadası, another coastal town about 20 km away. Kuşadası translates to “Bird Island.”

Kuşadası was very much a tourist area. It was fun to walk around and look in the shops. Further down the shore, there was a Venetian/Byzantine castle on an island.

After walking around the castle, David and I took an hour ferry ride back and forth around the harbor. It only cost 10 TL, which is less than $6 USD! The wind was blowing, the sun was shining, and it was very relaxing.

{Photo taken by our friend Dale.}

The next morning, we took a train back to Izmir. The train was extremely packed because of everyone traveling home from the holiday. There was the cutest 6th grade Turkish girl with her dad and younger brother. One of our friends speaks Turkish, and she laughed as she heard the girl’s dad urge her on to practice her English with us. The girl had a big smile and asked us our names, how old we were, where we were from, and if we were studying or teaching.

We stayed at the same hotel in Izmir again, and after dropping off our bags, we explored some more ruins. Izmir also has a citadel called Kadifekale Castle. There wasn’t much to see within the castle, but the view was nice. The Aegean coast was on one side and the city was on the other. We also walked down to the Agora. They had it blocked off for some renovations and excavation, but we saw it through the gate.

For the last evening of our vacation, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

{Photo by our friend Dale.}

There were many vendors on the pier selling corn, oysters, chestnuts, and seeds. We wanted to try the ~~oysters~~ mussels. I almost backed out last minute because I was afraid they were raw, but they ended up being cooked. The ~~oysters~~ mussels were stuffed with rice and the vendor squeezed fresh lemon juice on top. David also got me a rose! Did I get a keeper or what?

We ate a delicious dinner at Mandolin Cafe and said goodnight and goodbye to Izmir.

It was a long 9-hour bus ride back to Ankara the next day, but so worth the trip!

» Read about day 1 & 2 here.

Library of Ephesus

November 5, 2012

Leah

Iyi Bayramlar: Day 1 & 2 in Izmir and Ephesus

November 1, 2012

David

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Last week, we had a few days off of school for Kurban Bayramı. Kurban Bayramı is an Islamic holiday celebrated in Turkey. According to wittistanbul.com, “The Feast of the Sacrifice commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael to show his faithfulness to Allah. You can find essentially the same story in the Old Testament where Abraham was willing to kill his son Isaac, until an angels stops him.”

Since our school is located in Turkey, we are closed during both Christian holidays and the Islamic holidays recognized by the Turkish government. It was a five day weekend, and we decided to travel to some historical and Biblical sites with two friends and colleagues.

We left Ankara Thursday morning by Pamukkale bus and headed to Izmir. The bus was fairly comfortable and had internet and built in entertainment, similar to a lot of airplanes. After a long 9 hour ride, we finally made it to our hostel. The first thing we wanted to do was see the water. We walked a few blocks and came upon the coast of the Aegean Sea. The sun was falling towards the horizon and we were greeted by a beautiful sunset.

As the sun dipped lower, we took a ferry to Karşıyaka, another part of the city, for dinner. It looked like a promising spot to find some grub, however, many of the businesses and restaurants were closed for the holiday. We found a quick bite to eat at a doner restaurant.

After taking the ferry back, we finished off the night by drinking coffee in a cafe next to the water. It was a very peaceful and relaxing night. Our hostel, Hotel Baylan, was very accommodating and affordable with a delicious breakfast buffet.

Izmir is a coastal city. We had perfect weather, and it looked like Florida with all of the palm trees. This photo was taken by our friend Dale! Well, by her camera’s timer.

In the morning, we left Izmir via train for Selçuk. This small town lays about 2 km from the ancient city of Ephesus. Our hostel, Attila’s Getaway, was only 3 km from Izmir. Breakfast and dinner were relatively expensive, so we found more affordable options in Selçuk. Although it was a bit more rugged than our first hotel, we enjoyed our stay.

After checking in, we took a taxi to Ephesus. Visiting Ephesus is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. As we walked around the ruins of the city, I was overwhelmed to be standing next to such amazing pieces of history.

Hercules Gate

On the ancient toilets! I may or may not have slipped past a rope for this picture…

We walked through the ruins taking pictures for a couple hours. We saw the library and the theatre believed to be mentioned in Acts 19. One of the most amazing exhibits was the Terrace Houses. This excavation site featured several houses with beautiful artwork. There were mosaics and frescoes still surprisingly visible upon the walls, ceilings, and floors of these houses.

In front of the Library at Ephesus

We sang Amazing Grace in the Great Theatre of Ephesus. The acoustics are so perfect that the person in the very back row can easily hear.

Inside the Ephesus Terrace House exhibit. There was beautiful and intricate tile work!

We grabbed dinner and coffee in Selçuk before heading back to the hostel, where we played games on the patio. The first two days of our break were amazing, and they were just the beginning!

» Read about day 3 & 4 here.