Spring Break 2012: Kas and Ephesus

Hey everyone! After a solid weekend in Luxor and Aswan, I am back to continue regaling you with the story of my Spring break. Are you excited? You should be. But first, I need to finish a story I forgot to tell about Olympos.

So, while we were in Olympos it rained. And, by rained...I mean stormed. First off, this was AWESOME. I haven't been even near a storm since coming to Egypt. I miss the sound of thunder. But, it also was a bit unfortunate since we went there to enjoy the beach. We spent a few hours laying out and then decided to take a kayak out to a couple caves we saw across the way. This wouldn't have been a big deal except that we had chosen to ignore the possibility of that whole storm thing and so when the wind started whipping us about when we were 20 minutes out....i may have gotten a bit freaked. But, luckily after some intense arm-busting attempting to row the kayak back...we made it to the beach. I'm pretty sure at some point during all of that, someone yelled for us to come back and we ignored it. Ahh well...we wanted an adventure, right?

Anyways, so on to this week's tale. After Olympos we took a bus to Kas, which is kind of a small ex-pat town on the harbor. It's got a few ruins (as do most places in Turkey) but overall it's just a beautiful place. We got the chance to watch the sunset on the Harbor, eat some ice cream, do a little shopping and eat dinner at this wonderfully quaint, restaurant where you could tell everything had just been made in  the woman's kitchen. I had  this amazing ravioli with yogurt (Turks love yogurt). Fantastic=]

That evening we all (Andrew and I, as well as the other gents who'd been in Kas that day) grabbed a bus to Selcuk which is the small town near Ephesus. The bus ride there was a bit much...to say the least. We left at 9pm and then got to a train station at 3am only to find out that the next bus to take us to Selcuk didn't come until 6am....so we may or  may not have sat at a bus station playing cards, drinking tea and generally wasting time until then. But, we got there, passed out for a bit and got to spend the entire day walking around the glorious ruins of Ephesus! Ya'll, I was SO SO SO excited. Paul is one of the most interesting people in the Bible and while I don't always agree with his take on everything...his letters are some of my favorites. So, to be in a place that he not only specifically wrote a letter to, but that he also spent a significant portion of time in, was AMAZING. I read most of his letters (Ephesians included of course=]) while we were in Turkey to keep things fresh in mind. I love how much Biblical history is scattered around all the places I'm going. I'm an incredibly visual person and so to see the places and walk the landscapes that i've heard about since I was little is quite honestly a dream come true. Hopefully the next one on that list will be Israel and Palestine!

What's left of the Ancient Wonder of the World: The Temple of Artemis

                           

   

THE LIBRARY OF CELSUS

Get ready...next time we're off to ISTANBUL!

Oh and a quick lesson I learned this week: 

"That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
2 Corinthians 12:10

Regardless of what happens, no matter how I fail...every time I  get back up again I want other people to realize that it's not me. The fact that when life sends me its worst I can move on and get through it, is only because I know what Christ has done for me. And if that's what people see when I get back up? Well, let me tell you. That makes every problem a little easier to handle. God is wonderful.

Spring Break 2012: Antalya and Olympos

Congrats! You've tuned in for post number 2 of my Spring Break Adventure! And it came out earlier than expected! Sadly, the reason for this somewhat early post is because for the past two days i've been dealing with an obnoxious cold which has led me to have to endure enjoy being drugged up in the solitude of my room and see what little sunshine I can through the slit in the wall window. Okay, okay...it's not that bad. I mean, those were all true statements, but things could definitely be worse. It is only a cold after all. On the bright side, i've gotten lots of sleep, done more work than you can possibly imagine some work, spent some good quality time with Jesus and watched a  few movies! Not a terrible weekend, eh? AND I'm currently wearing the awesome pants I got in Turkey!

Alright, so Spring Break Part 2 bring us to TURKEY! But where in Turkey you might ask? Or maybe not, if you got the chance to read my itinerary post. But, in case you didn't...

ANTALYA.

Antalya was beautiful! It's an old city in Turkey off the Mediterranean coast. Actually, according to one of my friend's it's the third most visited city in the world! I don't know how accurate that is. But, interesting nonetheless. Anyways, Andrew and  spent two days in Antalya at a hostel in the old portion of the city. It's really a pretty quick stop in terms of sight-seeing. However, what there is to see is wonderfully pretty. Plus, because it's so easy to see everything in the actual city of Antalya in one day, we spent the first day at the ruins of Termessos! Termessos is a city of ruins that lies on the Taurus mountain range that happens to have actually been able to defend itself from Alexander the Great due to its difficult access. And let me tell you, walking through the ruins (literally through/on/in/under) made you feel like you were in Lord of The Rings or some other epic adventure movie. LOVED IT.

walking past the baths.

Tombs

THEATRE!

The next day we spent in Antalya exploring the old city.

                

         
 

I got to learn how to weave a carpet!=]

Hostel!

But that's just Antalya, after that we went to what I will openly call the most beautiful place I have EVER visited:

OLYMPOS.

walking to the beach

oh, just ruins on the way to the beach

can we note the mountains all around, ruins on the left, and the snow capped mountain in the background...all by this little strip of Mediterranean. 

CHIMERA.

There used to be a temple to Hephaestus, the Greek God of blacksmiths, metallurgic and fire here because of the natural fire rising form spots all over the mountain. If the rain or a human puts it out, it simply starts back up again. The true eternal flame.

our Hostel: Kadir's Treehouse. SO cool.

See that?! it was so amazingly beautiful I couldn't describe it! I wish the pictures did it more justice. But, you'll just have to imagine being there. So, feel free to do that until the next segment of my Spring Break extravaganza comes out!  Which, by the way, might be a bit because Tuesday morning I will be flying down to Luxor with some friends to visit Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel! I'm super pumped about it! But am legitimately sorry to keep you waiting yet again. Love you all!

Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

PSALM 37:4 

Gallivanting around Foreign Lands: Spring Break 2012

My dearest friends and family. I am EXHAUSTED. But, having said that, I am also extremely aware of the need for Spring Break updates! So, in order to both allow myself to breathe and simultaneously provide a  wonderful procrastination tool for myself, I will be splitting up my spring break into a few different blog posts. How? I haven't decided. I guess we'll just see how things go=]

So, to start off this magnificent journey, I give you....

CYPRUS.

Oh Cyprus, how beautiful you are. After being stuck in traffic for 2 HOURS we finally got to Cairo International Airport and were headed to Cyprus! We flew into Larnaca and hopped in a taxi to head to our lovely seaside hostel. But, actually communicating where we wanted to go turned out to be somewhat of an issue at first considering we jumped right into Arabic without a second thought. Transitioning from one foreign country to another is hard. Lesson learned.

Views from the Hostel=]



That night we wandered around Larnaca and down to the main strip of restaurants and shops. Very cute,  got some delicious Greek food and then wandered by a dock for a bit before heading back to our awesome hostel for the evening.

    

The next morning we headed to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Unfortunately, we didn't have much of a plan of what to do in Nicosia when we got there other than wander around.


Us: So what is there to do in Nicosia?
Taxi Driver:  Nothing! Nicosia is capital. Only for shopping.
Us: .... (laughter)


Ahh well, story of our lives. We wandered around the Greek side a bit, hit up a small archaeological museum and then finally hit the border crossing over to Lefkosa, the Turkish side of Cyprus. The capital of Cyprus happens to be the only officially divided capital in the entire world. The southern portion belongs to the legitimate country of Cyprus which is majority Greek while the northern portion belongs to the unrecognized (by everyone except Turkey of course) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

attempting to figure out what to do and maybe where we are....

THE BORDER

The old marketplace 

Kyrenia Gate

After Nicosia, we grabbed a taxi to Girne which is a small seaside town where we were planning on catching a ferry to Turkey. It was BEAUTIFUL.

     That evening the boys and I just walked around Girne and generally enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. It's a harbor right by the Mediterranean and simply stunning both by night and day. After that, the gents were going to rent a car and drive around Cyprus for a few days, while Andrew and I just chilled in Girne until our flight that evening. WAIT. Back it up. I forgot to tell you all! So originally we were planning on getting that ferry to Turkey?? Yeah, well...that didn't quite work out. We went to find out where to catch it and the woman told us that it didn't even start running until MAY.  This was a bit of a mushkila. Luckily we were able to find a pretty cheap flight straight to Antalya for the next evening. So Andrew and I got to stay one extra day in Cyprus and still have the same amount of time in Antalya! شكرا يارب!  Anyways, we enjoyed our full extra day by checking out Kyrenia castle, which is directly on the Harbor, Bellapais Abbey and St. Hilarion Castle.

Inside Kyrenia Castle

Bellapais Abbey

View from the Abbey

St. Hilarion Castle

LOOK at that view.

somewhat blurry pic at the peak of the mountain=]

So that was our adventure in Cyprus....Look out for part two of this series when I head to Turkey!