Well, I figured I should finally send out some details about my last two weeks, sorry it has taken so long!
So, it’s a little strange writing a note on November 4th, and not being in America right now. All I can think of is when I wake up tomorrow, America could be an entirely new and different place to be from, or… it could be exactly as it was for the last 8 years. Exciting, and scary at the same time.
Anyways, on the 18th of October I took off for Turkey for a week long trip to meet up with my parents and my friend Bjorn Betzler from Duluth.(yup, that's right, another country off the list, and another chance to get out of Ukraine for a bit) You can see his blog on my list of links to the right and down a bit on my page.
I arrived in the afternoon, and set out to find my things and wait for Bjorn was supposed to be coming in shortly after me, but… as fait usually works out, I kept staring at the computer screen for incoming flights as the minutes delayed message kept flashing next to his flight from Casablanca… 20 minutes, 40 minutes... arrived… still waiting. Finally saw him in line, and we just kept laughing to ourselves thinking how cool it was that two guys from a smallish city in Northern Minnesota would be living in two completely different countries halfway round the world, and meeting up in Istanbul, Turkey.
I have to say that I didn’t do a lot of research for the trip, so didn’t have a lot of expectations about what Istanbul or Turkey in general would be like, other than I knew that I would be going into Asia for the first time in 9 years. I was pretty excited.
We jumped on the wonderfully easy public transportation, and after a few wrong turns, and a guy randomly asking, “are you lost,” “sort of” came our reply “are you guys from Minnesota?” he then asked. WEIRD, we eventually made it to the hotel. Since Bjorn had been out of civilization for the past year, we needed to get him some good kebabs and a beer, so we headed out on the street. We got a little lost again, but eventually made it back that evening to meet up with my parents. Even though I have seen them more than 3 times since I’ve been in Peace Corps, it was great to see them again.
Sunday was spent on an awesome ferry ride up the Bosporus Straight to the beginning of the Black Sea. The weather was beautiful (a little windy) but great to see both sides of Istanbul. Incredibly huge, over 15 million people!
Monday, we headed to the Asian side of Istanbul to buy some bus tickets for our 10 hour bus ride on Tuesday down the eastern coast of the Aegean, and also were able to get our hair cute/great shaves all at the same time. (Bjorn looked like h had lost 5 years in about 20 minutes, after his beard was shaved off)
Tuesday evening we arrived in the beautiful little town of Celchuk, near the ancient ruins of Effus. Effus is the 2nd largest set of ruins in the world, and the capital of Roman Asia over 2000 years ago.
Celchuk is the site of Peter’s Basilica, where Jesus’ disciple Peter came and built his church and was later buried in. Very cool to see where all of this history actually took place. The city was also only 10 minutes from the Sea, so after a 13 month hiatus, I was able to go swimming in something other than a dirty river. It was great. Friday we took another long bus ride back to Istanbul, and spent Saturday morning doing some last minute gift shopping, walking around the beautiful spice bazaar, and eating some more great food before we all needed to head our different ways.It was great to travel with my parents, and was awesome to spend a week with Bjorn as well. The food was delicious and the people were always friendly and willing to help. I would definitely recommend Turkey for your next trip.
Sorry this was so scrambled, but a lot went on, but also don’t want to bore you. Will try to be a little more frequent with my ramblings!! As always, miss you, and always great to hear from you!
-Seth
