turkish delight

Let me tell you about the discovery I made this week: Turkey is the best kept secret in this world. Seriously, my week there was absolutely incredible! Everyone needs to visit. Family Reunion 2013 anyone?

Here were some of the highlights:

Sunday we flew into Istanbul which is a HUGE city! There are 15 million people in the city! We had a beautiful view of the many mosques of Istanbul in the sunset on our drive to our hotel and dinner. I was in awe the whole time. The next day we spent the day touring some major sites in Istanbul. We went to the Topkapi museum which is an old Sultan's palace. We also toured the Blue Mosque which was absolutely stunning. Then we went shopping in the grand bazaar. After that we had a boat ride on the Bosphorus. It was soooooo beautiful! I loved it!







Tuesday was a super fun day. We went to the ancient greek city Troy... you know, the trojan horse... Then we went to our hotel right on the beach! And it was in a tiny little town so we basically had the beach to ourselves. Our tour guide hooked us up with speakers and firewood so we could have a bonfire and dance party on the beach. It was so much fun! We also had chicken fights in the pool and me and my friend Izak were undefeated.



Wednesday we went to a super sweet ancient city in Assos. It was up on a hill and had a beautiful view. Then we went to another ancient greek city Pergamon. It was supposed to be the home of Zeus. Remember the scene in Hercules when he goes up to talk to Zeus? yeah, been there. Except the whole time we were there it was absolutely pouring. It was thunder and lightning and hailing... None of us were ready for it either. I guess we upset Zeus for some reason. But I thought it was fun. we were so soaked that we had to have all the girls change their clothes on the bus. Oh and the bathrooms in Turkey are just holes in the ground that you squat over... So yeah, I really felt like I was roughin it. That night me and some of my friends went out in the city of Kusadasi and did some Karaoke. The old people loved us. ha



Thursday we went to the city of Ephesus. It was so cool! It was huge! It's the city Paul wrote Ephesians to. It was such a sweet place. And I had a super embarrassing moment at the place. There was an ancient greek library that me and my friend were taking pictures in front of that had steps leading up to it. Well on my way back down the steps I slipped and started falling down the stairs. Well, the bad news was I was wearing a skirt. So I flashed like a hundred people. I was laughing so hard! But I wasn't sure if it was actually very noticeable. But a little while later a boy from my group came up to me and said, "pink underwear huh?" hahahahaha it was soooo funny! So apparently it was really noticeable and quite a few people got a little show.



That night we stayed at a really nice hotel with a hot spring! It was so nice. Then the next day we walked around in this hot springs waterfall thing which was really neat. That night the pool at the hotel was down in the bottom level so a big group of us played this game we made up called watermelon polo. So each of the boys had a girl on their back and the girls would hold the watermelon and try and score a touchdown on either side of the pool. It was so crazy! I had scratches and bruises all over my arms the next day. It was so fun though!



Saturday we finally got to go the the Hagia Sophia! It was so incredible! It was huge! I loved every second of it. Saturday night we caught our flight back to Isreal. When we were at the airport there was this group of asian ladies that cut a bunch of people in the line waiting for customs and security came and they all got into it. hahah it was so funny to watch. One of the ladies was hitting the security guy and they were still trying to sneak around them to cut in line. Things are never boring here. We finally got back to our home (yeah, Jerusalem is my home) at four in the morning. I already miss turkey! It was so much cooler than I expected. I seriously loved everything about it. Actually I take that back. The food was terrible. But other than that my experience was perfect. God bless Turkey!