I have pictures of Istanbul, but unfortunately, I don’t know what most of the things are. Josh and I had a nice drive though Istanbul from the port to the airport, so my tour guide was my taxi driver, who couldn’t always understand what I was asking, although he was very nice. On a side note, I always feel a little awkward in Muslim countries talking to men because I don’t know if I am supposed to, and I don’t know how to act so that I don’t offend them more than I already do by being a woman and a westerner and a Christian. Turkey was a lot nicer than Egypt though, and I would love to visit there again. It looked like a beautiful and interesting country, with forests and impressive cities and good roads where people follow traffic laws. It’s on my list of places to go again.

Minarets from the many mosques, as seen from our balcony. Our taxi driver explained that there were several famous mosques, I believe that one of the left is - since it has six minarets.

Either this is part of the wall that used to be the edge of the city of Istanbul, or this is an aquaduct. Either way, it’s impressive.

This is part of the wall of the old Istanbul.

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Josh and I woke up to drumming outside of our window, I staggered over to pull back the blind to find this group of musicians making some noise to welcome us to their country. Welcome to Turkey.

Josh and I got going and headed out to find a taxi to take us to Ephesus. All the cab drivers had a set rate to go see the church built where Mary the mother of Jesus lived at the end of her life and died, and to Ephesus. So we got acab to take us out there. The countryside of Turkey was very beautiful, the mountains were amazing, but I don’t have a lot of good pictures because our driver decided that he could drive 120 mph up a very twisty mountain road. It was crazy. The other cars all followed the speed limit… not him.

This is the church built where Mary lived. It’s a really beautiful place, in the woods, very peaceful and soothing. One of my favorite places we visited on our trip.

We arrived in Ephesus. If you want to see good ancient ruins, I would highly recommend this site. It is basically a city, the streets, the shops, the amphitheatre, all still there for the most part. There are arches and the plumbing and sculptures.

This is the little amphitheatre. Basically, town hall. It’s interesting because they followed the same principles that we still follow, to have nice seats in the front, and as you go up, you get the crappy seats.

Behold - the arch!

The city street.

This was a fountain, I believe.

This is the huge amphitheater that the Ephesians dragged the Apostle Paul, shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” It’s HUGE. It’s so incredible to walk on the same roads that Paul did, stand in the same buildings. It seems so remote, yet they are still there.

A larger view of the size of that amphitheater.

The best sign… found just outside the Ephesus ruins.

At the end of the day, a peacock awaits us in our room.

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