IZMIR

OCT 24-25

We are at the Izmir Hilton and the view from our room is great.

This the view of our hotel from the Velvet Castle from the top of the elevator (more on that in a moment).

This is what is left of the Velvet Castle.

We went thru the procedure of sending pictures of our passports and personal info to get permission to visit one of the synogogues in Izmir. We decided to walk there, rather than take a taxi as suggested by our guide, not because we are cheat, which we are, but we didn't want to sit anymore. So, we walked about an hour. It was wonderful and interesting. We passed by this elevator that was built hundreds of years ago and takes people to the upper level of the city. School kids were coming home from school using the elevator. We went up and were a little uneasy since the doors open outward and there is no inside door, so the rock walls shoot by right along side your elbow.

We met 3 boys at the top. One asked in pretty good English where we were from and the normal questions, but he asked who we liked, McCain or Obama. We were stunned that he even was aware of our election. I asked him who he like. He said Obama. Amzing that he has an opinion.

We went to the Synogogue

which is under tight security. We had to show our passports to the guard (no copies, originals only) in order to get thru the metal gate.

Some of the crafts for sale at the castle. The walls may be down, but the shopping stalls are still up.

We took another ferry to the 'Otherside' which is the name of that part of town. On this ferry ride we also made an effort to talk to the natives. We tried our Turkish on them and they laughed. Not real good for our egos, but fun. We learned some new words tho.

On the otherside we saw a fleamarket being set up. These nice ladies sold me a special healing necklace. They were wonderful. They wanted so much to help, even tho they didn;t speak English. A young girl came by and helped translate for us and they gave her a bracelet for helping.

On our way back fron the synogogue we were looking for a place to get a lite lunch, we were in the business area with tall office buildings so we didn't have high hopes of finding one. When we turned the next corner we found an atypical shopping street. The streets were very narrow, alleys went off in every direction. On some streets men were standing in the middle of the street hawking there pants or pots or toys very loudly. It was a wonderful circus. We spent 1-2 hours there and never did stop for anything to eat :)

The rest of Izmir was taken up with doctors, but you know about that already.

GALLIPOLI BATTLEFIELD

OCT 22


Today was a long one. We left our hotel in Istanbul and rode on the bus until lunch at 1. This is a picture of the cute town we had lunch at. (dangling participle?)






We continued on to the battlefield at Gallipoli. When we were in New Zealand I, Arleen, learned about the battles there on Anzac Day. In WWI, for 10 months, Allied forces, made up mostly of Australian and New Zealand forces, tried to take control of the Dardanelles from the Ottoman Empire (pre-Turkey). 500,000 men were either injured or killed during that time. It may be the bloodiest campaign ever fought.

It was fought in a beautiful location. As you can see from the picture, the cliffs are very high. The Allies had bad maps that showed flat land, and they thought they could take over the area easily. Wrong!

It is a National Park now and the beach where they landed is renamed Anzac Beach.

There are many cemeteries at the park. This is an Allied one.

After the war and after the formation of the country of Turkey, Atiturk, the father of Turkey, wrote this in 1934:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives

You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

Therefore, rest in peace.

There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Meheds to us where they lie side by side

Here inthis country of ours.

You the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears

Your sons are now lying in our bosom, and in peace

After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Pretty moving I thought.

We then took a ferry across the Dardanelles to our hotel in Canakkale.

BACK ONLINE TODAY

No idea why, but today, in Cappadocia, in the middle of the country and the middle of nowhere, we have access to our blog. So Arleen has all of today to get you caught up. Duane went to visit another carpet factory and another pottery factory. I didn't feel like seeing them again, tho I will miss the locally hosted lunch. Oh, well.

So on with the posts.

Update

Due to the legal system in Turkey, we are unable to post to our blog in this part of the country. we may be able to when we return to Istanbul but we are not sure. it will be at least 8 more days before we are back there. We are still having a great time in spite of Arleen's arm. We had some conflict there. Before we left Greece, a doctor told us that we should have it looked and and set in a week. We thought that sounded good because then the swelling would have gone down and as the doctor said there would be less chance of it slipping. Fortunately we were going to be in the third largest city in Turkey at that time. When the time came we found a good hospital and a good dr. both recommended by Blue Cross. Unfortunately he said it should have been set in Greece before we left and he couldn't do anything now. It was too late. Two other Doctors confirmed that as well as two dr. on our tour. They also said another couple of weeks would not make a difference. So we decided to stay on the tour and Arleen would go to the Doctor when we get home and have the fracture reduced and set there. It will take some surgical intervention and special treatment. So we are enjoying our selves now. Arleen is even wearing several good luck and healing charms including one on her splint. Sorry we can't post pictures but we will also remedy that when we return to civilization. This is being posted by Arleen's sister Debbie.

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Oct 20

A view of Istanbul over looking the body of water known as the Golden Horn, an inlet that is shaped like a horn and glows golden in the sunset. It was and still a major port for the city.
Water plays a major roll in Instanbul which is surrounded by th Dardanells, the striaghts of the b
Bosphorus. the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, part of the Aegean Sea. The area saw many cultures, Persian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Bysantine, european Crusaders and finaly Turkish. The Turks were originally an oriental people who were forced to migrate due to pressure from the Chinese and Mongols. They finally settled in Turkey in 1299 A.D. as small tribal groups led by a local sultan. One principality under the Sultan, Osman, became dominant. His named was mispronounced as Ottoman, hence the Ottoman empire which, at its height occuppied parts of Europe,the north coast of Africa, and the coast of the Persian Gulf.



The Home of the Sultan was the Topkopi Palace, built on a penisula created by the Golden Horn and the sea of Marmara. It had four major courtyards, each of which had increasing restriction on who could enter. The first two were relatively open, The third restricted to people who were granted and audience with the sultan and members the Royal advisor council. It would have been highly unlikely that Arleen were be allowed to enter the building as seen below. Note the lovely blue sling from Greece.

Across from the palace is the Blue Mosque, one of 2,ooo that serve the 16 million people of Istanbul. it is so named because of the beautiful blue tiles used on the interior. It also had many beautiful stain glass windows.

Our last stop for the day was the Grand Bazaar, a shopping mall with 4,000 small shops selling everything under the sun. Enought to make women drool and grown men cry. We were warned that you had to be an expert shopper not to get taken for a ride, and then we were given an hour and a half to be taken.

You should find this picture strange. Our, Nigar (ryhmes with cigar) did not have a head covering for the blue mosque. Arleen found a hat in Greece that had been lost to the wind and run over by lots of buses. She cleaned it up and has been using it. So she lent her Greek hat to a Turkish guide to wear in a mosque. Neat, huh?

ATHENS

OCTOBER 17-19

Well on the 17th, after visiting the new Olympic stadium and being met by an Olympic gold metalist (albeit a long time ago) Rea took us to the hospital where a bone doctor (I forget what he is called) took a look at "our arm". He had us get a new x-ray and said we needed to wait a week and have it looked at again, when the swelling went down. Then, in another week we would need another x-ray to see what is up. We checked our schedule to make sure we would be in large enough cities at the right times, in order to decide if we should continue on to Turkey.

Since we are not at home now, we decided to continue.

Oct 18

Today we went to the old "agoras". An agora is the oldest mall. We went to the old Greek and the old Roman agoras. We also visited the museum at the agora. The most interesting thing was a stone monument, which was from the 6th century BC that was deciding a legal issue conserning a santuary. The fun part was that most of the print was one size, but as you got toward the bottom the print got smaller for several inches, and then smaller yet. Wow... their contracts had more small print than modern ones do.

We went to Pynx hill, the birthplace of democracy, where the greek forum met for the first time.

We accidently found the Malina Macury memrial exhibit. She was an actress who became the Minister of Culture. She helped get some old Greek artifacts repatriated. We saw the Tower of the winds. We walked back to the Acropolis and visited the Theatre of Dionysus, which is not fully excavated, and the Odeoin Herkles Atticus Theatre, which is used today for shows.

We ended up walking all around the Acropolis, which is the highest hill in Athens.

OCT 19

We flew to Istanbul, Turkey. Got to the hotel, looking forward to meeting our new guide. Things started out roughly. She did not meet us upon our arrival. She left word atv 6:30 when we were told she would be here, that she would be an hour late. Since our schedule showed we would be having dinner after our meeting, and since we had not eatten since the flight, at 10am, we were hungry. It turned out we did not get our meal and were on our own that night. Also, since it is fall here, the airconditioning in our otherwise lovely hotel, is off, even tho is 80 degrees out. When we open the windows for air, we also get noise and light. Oh well, another part of the adventure.

SANTORINI

THE AFTERNOON OF OCT 16

Santorini is a beautiful island that was a place of disasters. It used to be a full size island before 1450 b.c. (approximately), when the volcano did a Mt. Saint Helen's and blew the center of the island away, leaving just a ring of islets, the chaldera. It sent out a tidal wave that destroyed the civilization on Crete, some ninety miles away. More recently, our tour guide told us the tale of her ship wreck last May, when an over-eager captain hit some rocks that tore a hole in the ship and resulted in its sinking. Our guide, unable to return to her cabin lost all her clothes and her new laptop, which, we heard several times, she is still paying for inspite of the fact that the fish of Santorini are feeding on it and getting smarter. No lives were lost, just alot of possessions.

We discovered the class system in action. those who paid for an optional tour got the fancy sailing boat as a tender to go ashore in, while those of us too cheap to pay for the tour got the standard tender in the foreground (or should that be forewater) below.

That really isn't snow on the mountains. It is the town of Fira, a town of whitewashed houses sitting on the rim of the chaldera.


There are three ways to reach the town. One is to take the gondola which is to the left side of the picture below. The second is to take the zigzag path in the center of the picture and walk up.
The third is to ride a mule up the zigzag path to the top. Being adventurous, we chose the mules, forgetting about the disasters of Santorini.

Well.... we barely made it around the first zig, when Arleen's mule slipped on some donkey poop and went down, tossing Arleen to the ground with a distinct crack. The mule bounded back up but Arleen didn't. Her Major problem was trying to convince the men who came to help her up not to grab her now oddly shaped arm. After no little effort we found some help in the form of a tender crewman and a cruise line rep. Another ride across the bay, a harrowing ride up the switchbacks by car, we made it to the huge clinic, NOT. Then a short, but also harrowing ride by wheelchair to a long wait for a Dr. to show up and take x-rays. This was not the kind of pictures we had planned on taking when we reached the top, but you do what you have to do.

What else can we say. Just more pictures of the latest disaster at Santorini. Arleen lost her name there and for the rest of the time became known as "OUR ARM". as in "we have to take our arm to the hospital to have it checked." "Our arm is doing better." In the words of Rea, our guide.

STILL OCT 16