"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God's holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus..." -Ephesians 1:1
This semester our educational field trip was to the great and beautiful land of Turkey, a country famous for being "halfway between two continents". We flew into Istanbul early Tuesday morning and then from there took a short flight to Izmir. We spent one night in a nearby tourist town and the next day toured the ancient city of Ephesus. The ruins were incredible. I can't believe my friends and I got to walk the same streets Paul did only shortly after the resurrection of Christ! WOW.
We spent the remainder of the week in Istanbul, which to me seemed like a city straight out of Star Wars with its towering mosques and palaces and sparkling waterfront. We even got to take a ferry up the Bosphorus Strait and cross over onto the Asian side.
We shopped and bargained at the Grand Bazaar, where you can get beautiful accessories for as little as one turkish lira (about 63 cents) but have to deal with creepy storeowners telling you they've seen you on TV, grabbing your hand, and assuring you they have exactly what you need. We sampled tea and tobacco at the Spice Bazaar and stuffed ourselves full of baklava, fresh pomegranate juice, and turkish delight. We also toured the mosques, visited the sultan's palace, viewed his jewels (including a one-of-a-kind samurai sword), got scrubbed down in a traditional turkish bath, saw how turkish rugs and pots are made, and watched the prayer of the whirling dervishes.
It was a trip quite unlike any other.
"People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love." -Ben Okri
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