Ephesus

Day 1 in Turkey was the ancient city of Ephesus! According to the tour guide, Ephesus was one of the largest cities in the ancient world after Rome and Alexandria, Egypt. In Turkey, Ephesus would be considered an "old city", as opposed to a city that's just a few hundred years old. (I don't know if I remember writing somewhere that America doesn't have many "old" places as compared to Europe, but I sure remember thinking it. Well, Turkey has had civilizations for longer than most of Europe, so its cities and sites are even older. I think the guide said that one of the cities we're going to is over 9,000 years old!)

St. Paul visited Ephesus on several occasions, and he spent some time working and ministering there. At the end of one of his stays, some silversmiths who made money by selling little statuettes of Artemis of the Ephesians (who's a little different from Artemis of the rest of the Greco-Roman world) instigated a riot against him that ended up in the theater.

There are tons of pictures, so there will be several posts. Here are the first set of pictures.

This is at the upper entrance of the city. Ephesus is built in between two hills, and you can see one of them in this shot.

The next group of pictures are from the State Agora. An agora in a Greek city was generally an open area where people could gather and where people could usually find some kind of marketplace. This one, however, was used for citizens to gather and discuss the issues of the city, so it didn't have a marketplace. 

This is the road leading alongside the State Agora. As per our guide, the columns would have had a roof over them.

The next pictures are from the Bouleterion. It looks like a theater, but it was really where the city's government would hold council.

The entrance

Looking back towards the State Agora

Here's the inside

Incidentally, our guide told us that the entrance we came in was not the entrance all the statesmen would have used. They would have used that tunnel in the upper left.

If you've ever opened a textbook about Ancient Greece, you've probably heard about Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian pillars. For those who haven't, Doric stylings around the upper part of the column are very plain; Ionic got a little fancier and used those cinnamon-roll-looking swirls; and Corinthian stylings were very fancy, like the one in the middle

This is from an outlook overlooking the rest of the city.

That terrace, which is the grassy part over the top of those arches, is from Domitian's Temple. Domitian was very unpopular, and after he was murdered, his temple became another temple for his father.

Domitian's Temple from another angle.

Look at the detail on this!

Domitian's Temple again

As per our guide, this was the Greek goddess Nike, the goddess of victory. The wreath she's holding in her hand is what would be given to the victor.

See the detail in the carving here.

That's it for now - more to come in a little bit!

At the Airport!

Hello readers!

The time has finally come! I am typing this from the Chicago airport (because I don't really want to be doing my SPU homework), and the next time I post will be from Turkey!

I've spent the last two hours fighting with my brave little Netbook, trying to figure out how to make it work faster, and I think I've got it fixed. But wow, did that ever take a long time!

I met up with the group from WLC, no problem, and we're going to start boarding in about half an hour. I can't wait!

How I'll Post Pictures

Posting pictures from Turkey will be a little different than from Europe for a few reasons. First, there's a new rule in place that doesn't allow passengers on flights from Istanbul to the US to have electronics larger than a cell phone in the cabin, which means that if I were to bring my larger laptop, I would have to stow it in checked baggage. That just seems like a good way to get it stolen or broken, so I'll be leaving that at home. This means that, unless there's a computer everywhere we stop (which I doubt), I won't be able to add photos from my Kodak camera right away. Furthermore, you couldn't pay me to blog on my phone for two weeks. I'm doing it right now, and it's a pain. I will try to bring along my old Netbook, since I doubt anyone will want to steal that, but it also has limited capabilities. Ergo, there might be a huge pause in my posting, followed by an avalanche of posts.

Wait a minute... That sounds exactly like Europe! Guess it really doesn't affect me! 

The real reason is that some of these pictures are part of someone else's project, and I wouldn't feel right sharing them. I will link to them when they are posted, but don't look for them on this blog. 

There will definitely be plenty of pictures that I'll be taking just for this blog, and because the first part of this trip follows one of Paul's missionary journeys, it follows a story. That means there will be a lot more story to tell than in my Europe posts. I'm taking off for the first leg of the trip just two months from yesterday - I can hardly wait! 

Onward to Turkey!

Hey everyone, I'm back here now! I just saw that all the money went through, which means that I am all set to go to Turkey!

Unlike my Europe adventures, which were mostly a solo expedition (except for Italy), this one is going to be entirely with a group of people connected to WLC. The first part of the trip is hosted by a group called Tutku Tours, and we're joining them in their tour that studies the Apostle Paul's third missionary journey in western Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos. If you follow that link, you'll notice that that particular tour goes to Troy and Istanbul, but my group is actually heading our own way before then. We are heading to Balikesir to search out Roman roads, photograph them, and map them for Dr. Glen Thompson's website Anatolian Roads.

I'll have more information and links coming soon, so be sure to check back here!

Turkey

I wasn't going to post this here, but in light of recent events...

My last post on this blog, I wrote that I might be going to Turkey this summer. That fell through back in March, so no, I was not in Turkey during the attempted military coup.

(For the record, I would not have been in Turkey anyway. The trip would have ended June 18th, and the attempted coup was mid-July.)

So, between grad school and work, it's likely to be a while before I go traveling anywhere again. When I do, I'll be sure to post pictures. However, I'll probably have a different blog for that, since I just looked at the URL for this one and realized it doesn't fit anymore. In view of that, I'm signing off this blog for now.

One more time...

Happy Trails!

The Blue Lagoon - Last Day in Iceland

Iceland's airport is out of Reykjavik, and on the way is the famous Blue Lagoon, so you can actually buy a tour that will take you from your hostel to the Blue Lagoon and then to the airport. That's what I did my last day in Iceland.

First, the obligatory driving-out pictures:

I wasn't the only one going straight to the airport:

One of the cool things about the Lagoon is that they take your picture and send it to you:

One of the ladies there told me that I was brave to get my picture with the silicone on my face, but I honestly thought that was the point.

Anyway, I had lots of time after showering until my bus came to get me for the airport, so I wandered around the trails outside of the lagoon. That was super cool, because the sun came out and I got to see what it all looked like in the sun:

And finally, some last-minute blurry photos from the bus window as we drove to Keflavik Airport:

I like this picture

And naturally, there was a picture of Leif Erickson at the airport:

Well - that just about wraps up my 2015 Europe adventures. However, it does not quite wrap up my blog, because I found out over Christmas that my parents might let me go on an archaeological trip to...

Turkey!

Assuming the situation doesn't get any worse over there, my next post on this blog will probably be from Turkey! And I will have officially been on three continents by that point, because I'm pretty sure we're going into the part of Turkey that's on Asia. At the moment, it's not the safest place in the world, so it's possible my trip will get cancelled, but God willing, this coming June I will get to trace the routes St. Paul took on his third missionary journey! So, if I wind up going, there will be more pictures to see on my Travel Blog. In the meantime, thank you for looking at my pictures and for commenting, and I will now be posting more frequently on my original blog. 

God bless your day!