Turkey Trip

John went to Turkey for a few days in June to go to a research conference.  The trip started off a little shaky because he missed his flight from Istanbul to Izmir.  It turns out that a 70 minute layover in a foreign airport where you need to go through customs is not long enough.  But the flight 6 hours later worked out just fine, and he made it to the hotel safe and sound.

The hotel was actually an all-inclusive tourist resort located in the city of Kusadasi on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

Here is the view from his hotel room during the day and at sunset.

Here is the view OF his hotel room.

They were concerned about the environment in very broken English.

The buffet included many interesting and unfamiliar foods that were (usually) very good.  The watermelon art was pretty cool.

John took a tour that included a stop at the Shrine to the Virgin Mary. This is the location where Mary supposedly lived out her days after placed in the care of John the Beloved.

Shrine to the Virgin Mary

There was a wall there were people tied prayers, I think to Mary unfortunately.

The next stop on the tour was Ephesus. Here are some of the highlights from the visit - see photos and captions.

The smaller theatre.

Some ruins.  Apparently only 15% of the ruins there have been excavated.

A city street.

The toilet area.  Excellent privacy as you see.

The library / tomb of some famous person.

The city street from the bottom.

 

The great Ampitheater.

The great Ampitheater.

This road, leading away from the Ampitheater, used to end at the shore of the Aegean sea, which is now several miles from where it was 2000 years ago.

The Turkish countryside.  Many of the hills, such as this one, are covered with olive trees that are carefully tended.

The next day John went on a tour of Sirince, a pretty little village in Turkey.

There was an ancient church to John the Baptist there that was very interesting.

The main thing you do in Sirince is buy souvenirs from the street vendors.  One purchase John made was a bathroom stop, costing 1 Turkish lira.

The conference included a fancy dinner in town at this restaurant that resembles a fortress.

Kusadasi restaurant

The inside of the restaurant is open to the sky, which meant that there were bats flying above at sunset eating bugs. Unfortunately it also meant that people were smoking at the tables.

The live entertainment after dinner included a violinist, singing, cultural dancing, and belly dancers.  The belly dancers made John feel very uncomfortable.

Sirince literally means "place that is cute."

This is the view of Istanbul from the airplane when John returned home.

Here are the girls in their Turkish dresses John bought in Sirince.

John felt lucky that he got to take a trip to Turkey and not have to pay for it.  Oh, and the presentation he made on his paper went well.  It was a great experience, and he was especially happy to be home with his family afterwards.  A week is too long to be gone!

From my journal: The next Saturday John left to go to Turkey! He surprised me with a fun date before he left. Matt came over and we went country dancing (my favorite!). Unfortunately I don't see any country dancing places in Phoenix. :( Well, this trip to Turkey was definitely the longest that John has ever been away from me. So sad! However, having him be gone so frequently on interviews sure made it so I was broken in to the idea of him being gone. I stayed really busy too. My mom came down for the first couple days. We had a picnic at the park, birthday party, shopping, and stake conference to keep us occupied. Then we went up to Ogden, where I spent a day with Patti and a day with Miriam. We also played at a splash pad, Treehouse museum, and even went to the zoo for a day. It was really busy, and fortunately it went surprisingly quickly. I was so glad to see John when he got home at midnight on Friday.

We actually went right back up to Ogden on Sunday where we had a birthday party for my grandpa--89 years! Unfortunately that night we had car trouble (so grateful this didn't happen while John was gone!) We tried to drive home, but all of the electric stuff failed (like the headlights) so we got off the freeway at Hill AFB and drove back to my parents house at 10pm. Total miracle for several reasons. First, we didn't get pulled over for driving without headlights. Second, we didn't have to slow down once that whole time (no red lights the whole way!). Third, when we did have to slow down for a car and our car died, we were only 100 yards away from my parents' house so we could push it the rest of the way. Anyway we ended replacing the alternator and the battery. Also we have to replace the tires soon. Love car repairs (and by love, I mean HATE!)

We ended up staying for two more days while the car was being fixed. John was particularly grumpy about this. Yeah, not fun. Also, we went back the next weekend for fathers' day, which was nice. I surprised John with clothes, pistachios, and the game 7 Wonders. We like playing games with our upstairs neighbors (Aren and Charlene Sorenson).  We went up to Ogden and made it to West Valley too. It was a fun weekend and I hope John felt loved. I hope he also felt loved this weekend by a fun game that we played. It was a matching game for couples where  you did what was on the card like give your spouse your best pick up line. And meet your spouse in the tub. It was really fun.

We have had a hard time getting back in the swing of things since the trip to Turkey. I hope we can get back into our groove. One thing that hasn't helped was Miriam throwing up a bunch this week. Yikes that isn't fun! Fortunately she seems to have handled it quite well. Speaking of Miriam, I should go wake her up from her nap now. :)