Paris - Day Three

Today was the last day of the trip, tomorrow we head out to the airport and fly back to the U.S. It will be nice to get home, but I have a lot to do. We get home on Monday evening and I have a full day of class and work on Tuesday. I also have to move this week, which will be a pain but I’ll get it done.

With all that coming up this week I took it easy today. This morning we went down to the Cathedral of Notre Dame and went to Sunday mass. The service was cool but I was a little disappointed in the building. I probably would have loved it if I hadn’t visited St. Peters in Rome a few days ago, but I did so when I came in the first thing I thought was, “where is all the color?” The building is very big, but it is also very gray, and while the rose design stain glass windows are nice, they look a little dull when compared to the mosaics at St. Peters. I think St. Paul’s outside the wall in Rome was more beautiful too.

(Notre Dame)

The acoustics in Notre Dame are great though and they have a giant organ, and a great choir, so it was really fun to listen to the music. Some of the organ music was pretty dramatic and gothic, a good match for the cathedral.


After that we grabbed lunch and I decided to break away from the other people that I was with and head back to the hotel. I was tired and I needed some time to be by myself. Since the metro stop was on the way, I ended up stopping by the Louvre again to see if they had any paintings by El Greco. I spent about two hours in the museum again, this time just in the section devoted to the Italian and Spanish painters. Even then I missed some stuff but I was able to see some great paintings that I missed yesterday. They have some great paintings by Leonardo and Raphael that I missed yesterday. They also have some cool stuff by Caravaggio and Annabel Carracci. When I finally made it to the Spanish painters I did find a few paintings by El Greco, so all in all it was a good trip. I stopped by the Mona Lisa and the sculpture of Cupid and Psyche again today as well and today Cupid and Psyche were definitely my favorite. It is such a delicate sculpture compared to the rest of the marble statues, and it’s newer so the marble is cleaner and smoother.

(Cupid and Psyche)

(The Winged Victory of Salmonthrace)

After the Louvre I headed back to the hotel and took a little nap. Then the rest of my roommates got back so I tried to go to sleep for a while but I was unsuccessful so I gave up and went to Starbucks for a Latte. After I got back we headed up to Montmartre for dinner.
Montmartre was more of what I expected Paris to be like. It is the Bohemian part of the city, where the painters and the musicians all live, and the streets and squares are smaller and feel cozier. We stopped at a great little restaurant and had a fantastic, fantastic dinner. I had a glass of champagne, escargot, steak, a pear tartan pie with ice cream for dessert and a cup of coffee. It was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.

(Top, Sacre Coeur, bottom, the steps leading down from the Sacre Coeur.)

After that we went up to the Sacre Coeur, and looked out on the city. It was different view of the city than the Eiffel tower view. From the Sacre Coeur, you see everything but it isn’t as small, instead of just seeing the lights of the city, you see all the buildings but they look like big doll houses. It was pretty cool. After that we headed down to the metro and rode it back to our hotel. I’m surprised how safe a city Paris is. Even riding on the metro at 11:00 pm, it felt totally safe, I even saw girls that were going down to take the metro by themselves as we came out.
And that was it for today.

All in all it was a good birthday in Paris. Like I said tomorrow I’ll be back in L.A. I’ll try to get some stuff about Rome written and hopefully posted while I’m in the airport and on the plane. Until then, thanks for reading.

Paris - Day 2

Today was our first full day in Paris. We went to the Louvre and the Musee D’Orsay. We were going to go to the Rodin Museum but when we got there the museum was closed. A huge police blockade was stopping traffic and blocking off a section of the city where there was a protest against Israel (and where the entrance to the Rodin museum was.) I tried to get closer to the protest to see what it was like but there were literally 30 to 40 police vans lining the streets and blocking off the section where the protest was.

On top of missing out on the Rodin museum, I also left the memory card for my camera in my computer again (I did that once in Rome too,) so I wasn’t able to take pictures of anything today. To make up for it, here is another picture of the Eiffel tower from last night.

So far I have been surprised by how happy and friendly the French people seem. The city is a lot cleaner and more open than Rome is. That also means that it has less personality than Rome. It is a cool city though. I think that it would be really easy to live here (if you could afford it, it’s pretty expensive.) I honestly think Paris may be the foreign city that is most like the U.S. that I have ever been to.

The Louvre was a cool museum, but it is so big that it is overwhelming. It is probably the biggest museum I’ve ever been in. There are three different sections and each section is as big as a normal sized museum. The most famous things that we saw at the Louvre are: the Venus De Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Michelangelo’s Dying Slave. The coolest thing may have been the statue called “Cupid and Psyche” but I did think the Mona Lisa was pretty cool. I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but there is something about her smile. I whenever I looked at her it seemed like she was just about to or just finished smirking.

After a stop at Starbucks we headed over to the Musee D’Orsay, which was really great. I was worried about time since I wanted to see the Rodin museum too, so we started at the top floor and worked our way down (the top floor has the impressionists.) They had some great and really famous paintings by Manet and Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin and Pissarro. My favorite paintings were by Van Gogh and Degas. Even in a museum section that has all the great paintings that this one did, the colors in the Van Gogh’s were just amazing, the only things that were even close were some of the pastel drawings that they had up there. And Degas had some really cool paintings too, I even got a print of a painting called something like ‘Blue Dancers’ (the title was in French, so I’m guessing.) But maybe the best thing I saw in the whole Musee D’Orsay was a statue of a little girl ballerina by Degas, it was amazing. If I had my memory card with my camera I would show you a picture of it, but as things are you’ll have to trust me.
It turns out that we had plenty of time to see all that we wanted of the Musee D’Orsay, it’s not nearly as big as the Louvre, so when we all had our fill we headed off in our ill fated trip to the Rodin museum.

After our unsuccessful attempts to get close enough to the protest to see part of it we walked back up to the Eiffel tower then up to our hotel and rested for a little bit. After that it was off to dinner (tonight was McDonalds) and then over to the Eiffel tower. In general, the Eiffel tower is just way cooler than I thought it would be, especially at night. It’s awesome. We were able to make it up to the top tonight and the view of the city from up there is breathtaking. I didn’t get any pictures of that either, I will try to get some that other people took and post them.

That was it for today. Tomorrow we’re going to try to catch a church service at Notre Dame, go into the Catacombs at Notre Dame, and maybe climb up the Arc de Triumphe. For my birthday tomorrow night we’re going up to Montmartre (the bohemian part of the city) to find a cool café to have dinner in and then we’ll head over to the Sacre Coeur. And then the next day it’s off to the airport and back to L.A.

As always thanks for reading. Until tomorrow…

Paris - Day One

I know I'm behind. I have a lot to say about my days in Rome, but again I'm too tired tonight. I will try to fill in my time in Rome soon and upload some pictures from Athens and Rome, but not tonight.

I am in Paris, most of the class is on their way back to L.A., but five of us are staying in Paris for a few days. I'm staying at the Marriott here (thanks mom and dad) and it is really nice. After we flew into Paris today, took a bus from the airport to the city, and then dragged our bags to the hotel we rested for a few hours. After that we walked out to the Eiffel tower, which is really, really cool. We were going to go up to the top, but it was so windy tonight that the top level was closed, so we'll try again a different time. After the Eiffel tower we walked over to the Arc de Triumphe and up the Champs-Elysees. We had dinner up there and then headed back over to the hotel.

Tomorrow we're starting out with the Louvre then headed to the Musee D'Orsay and then the Rodin museum. We'll see what we do after that. Thanks for reading.

Day 23 - Rome

Rome is great. If you haven't been to Rome you should come. It's that good.

Today we went to the Vatican, saw the Vatican museum, the Sistine chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. Then we went to St. Paul's outside the walls, which was built over Paul's burial spot, then we went to the church of the three fountains, which was built where Paul was beheaded. After we got back to the hotel I went out and had dinner (lasagna and espresso) then walked to the Spanish steps and the trevi fountain. On the way back to the hotel I stopped and had gelato, the chocolate chip is pretty much the best chocolate chip I've ever had.

I am almost falling asleep as I write this, so I will stop now. I will try to come back tomorrow and fill in a little bit more about the stuff we saw today and post some pictures for today and the last few days. I will just quickly list the things that took my breath away today: the Disputa and the School of Athens (Raphael painted them on opposite walls of the same room,) the Sistine chapel (seeing a picture isn't in the same universe as seeing the real thing,) the Pieta, my first steps into St. Peters, my first steps in St. Pauls, and the front facade of St. Pauls.

More to come tomorrow, until then, thanks for reading.

Days 21-22 - Athens to Corinth to Athens to Rome

No pictures again today, I'm too tired to upload them. Tomorrow I should have time to post pictures for both the last post and this one.

This will be another double post. I’m here in Rome and I’m pretty wiped out. We have two more full days here and then I have three days in Paris and then back home.

Yesterday we woke up in Athens and then drove out to Corinth, the Acrocorinth specifically, which is this huge hill where the temple of Aphrodite was. Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, so naturally her temple was a huge brothel. Corinth was a big time port city, any ship travelling east or west would travel through Corinth so the temple of Aphrodite was the first stop that a lot of the sailors made as when they got to Corinth (and let me tell you, that wouldn’t be easy, we drove half-way up the Acrocorinth and it was still about a 45 minute hike up to the top.)

Every other year there is a Talbot class that goes to Turkey, Greece, and Rome and the alternate year a class goes to Israel. There are some people on the trip this year that went to Israel last year and yesterday a girl came with us who went to Israel last year but now lives in Greece. She is starting a ministry here in Athens that is focused towards girls who are involved in human trafficking. I guess Greece is one of the top ten countries that are destinations for human trafficking (Italy and the U.S. are also in the top ten.) The girls get tricked into thinking they are signing up for a job and then are forced into prostitution when they get to the new country. She told us about one girl who she met at a women’s shelter whose story is pretty typical. She is a Ukrainian girl who was from a small town and applied for a job to work at the Athens Olympics. She went through a whole interview process, she was 17 but lied and said she was 18, she said there were 13 and 14 year old girls who did the same thing. She got the “job” and so did a bunch of other girls from her town. The girls all left on a bus, thinking they were headed for Athens. The bus took the girls to Istanbul, where they were checked into a hotel and brutalized for a couple of days to break the girls and get rid of any resistance they had. After that they were taken to Athens (prostitution is legal in Greece) and forced to work in a brothel where they worked 14 hour days and saw 20-30 clients a day. The girls are threatened if they try to leave, if threats to them don’t work their families are threatened (the girls give all their personal info when they think they are applying for a normal job.)

It was pretty wild to hear Kelsey (the girl who is trying to work with these girls) talk about that then go and visit one of the major prostitution centers of both the Greek and Roman worlds. I’m not sure what the temple of Aphrodite was like, but I’m sure there were plenty of things that went on like that in the 1st century as well.

After the Acrocorinth we went and visited the old forum (or agora) in Corinth, had lunch, and then visited a shop where they made authentic museum copy pottery and statues. I got two small pieces, a little vase with Hector on it and a little container that had Achilles. I really like both of them. Before we headed back to Athens for the night we visited a port town that Paul stopped at on his way back home from his second missionary journey. I skipped some rocks there and we tried to get Jin to break open some sea urchins but she said they were too small to eat.

After dinner a few of us hiked from the hotel up to the top of the highest hill in Athens, it was really cool. It was another beautiful night and we had a great view of the city. We looked down on the Parthenon, which was cool. There was a church up top there, and we prayed for a little bit and then headed back to the hotel.

This morning we got up extra early, headed to the airport, and said goodbye to Athens and hello to Rome. The flight wasn’t bad but it was delayed about 45 minutes and then it took forever for us to get our bags so we were a little behind schedule for our first day in Rome. From the airport we drove straight to the town of Ostia which was the primary port for Rome for a while, and then was the secondary port for Rome. If Paul ended up going to Spain like he said he was going to in the book of Romans, he would have come through Ostia.

After that we drove to the Appian way and walked the last two miles into the city, which was the main road into Rome and the road that Paul took. Then we saw some catacombs and then drove to the hotel.

Our hotel here in Rome is very nice, it’s about ten minutes from the Coliseum and the Forum and it is practically across the street from the church called St. Peter in chains, which has Michelangelo’s Moses. I had pasta and pizza for dinner (it was great,) gelato for dessert (won’t get banana again,) and then walked around and saw the Coliseum and the Forum (St. Peters was closed; I’ll try to see it tomorrow.)

Tomorrow morning we’re going to the Vatican and St. Peter’s basilica, and I’m really excited about both of those. We have seen a whole lot of archeology stuff, and I’m ready to see some art. So tomorrow is the Sistine chapel, the school of Athens, and I think the Pieta. And I’m sure there will be other really cool stuff too.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Days 19 & 20 - Delphi to Athens to Athens

We’ve got some internet troubles at our hotel here in Athens, so no pictures right now, I will try to upload some if our internet situation improves here or if the internet access is better when we get to Rome.

I know that I said I wasn’t going to post two days at once again, but I’m going to give it a shot again. This post will cover yesterday and today.

Yesterday we went to Delphi. Delphi was the religious center of Greece and much of the surrounding world. There was a temple to Apollo at Delphi, and at the temple they had an oracle that people believed Apollo spoke through (Apollo was the god of divination.) It started out that one day a year (April 7th) the Pythoness (priestess) would come out and answer questions. Eventually they would do it once a month (the seventh day after the new moon) nine months a year (Apollo apparently wintered somewhere else.) So nine days a year people would come to Delphi to ask the oracle what they should do. The oracle always gave these mysterious answers that could mean anything, but people believed they were from the god. There was a king (I think the Lydian king, they had a city in what is now Sardis, Turkey. One of my favorites on this trip) who asked the oracle if he should go to war against the Persians. The oracle answered that if he warred against the Persians, a great kingdom would be destroyed. So, thinking that the oracle gave him the ok to go to war, he attacked the Persians and lost and his kingdom was destroyed.

Ten percent of the spoils from battle always went to the gods, and Delphi was where that ten percent was offered. So there were all sorts of monuments that were built as offerings to the gods at Delphi. Most of them are gone, but a few of the Athenian things were still there. One of them was a treasury that the Athenians built to commemorate their victory over the Persians at Marathon.

We had a beautiful day at Delphi, so it was really fun to hike up the mountain and look at all the stuff. I was even able to crawl underneath the foundation of the temple of Apollo where the Pythoness would go to get the answers of the questions from Apollo. That was fun; I also hiked up to the top section of the city on the mountain and saw the theater and stadium that were there. You’re not allowed to climb on a lot of that stuff in Greece like you are in Turkey, but it was fun to see stuff that was in really good shape.

After Delphi we drove to Athens. Athens is a really cool city. We had great weather here yesterday, and today the high was in the mid fifties, which is great. After we checked into the hotel last night we walked out and saw some of the city. We saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, which became I lot more impressive when I found out that each of their shoes weighed six pounds (there was a whole lot of high stepping and holding the feet out in the air.) Then we went to a gyro place, had dinner, and then walked out and took some pictures of the Acropolis at night.

Today we went out and saw the remains of the temple to Zeus, then went over to the acropolis, where we saw the Dionysus theater, which is the oldest theater in Europe, then we hiked up to the top of the Acropolis. There we had a great view of the city, and the Parthenon and another temple was up there too. It was a great place to see the old Agora, Mars hill and other old places in the city. After spending some time up there taking pictures we went down to Mars hill, where Paul may have made his defense to the Areopagus. Then we went down to the old Agora, and went to the other place where Paul’s defense to the Aeropause may have taken place.

All of that stuff was great, but seeing the theater was one of my favorites since it is so old, then every famous Athenian has probably seen a play there. If Socrates or Plato had seen a play in Athens, they would have seen it there. Pericles was probably there, Alcibiades probably lived there. If Paul went to see a play in Athens it would have been there (and there is an interesting line in his defense to the Areopagus that is very reminiscent of Aeschylus’ Eumenides.) And the great Greek playwrights, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides probably all debuted plays there.

After that it was on to lunch and then the Athens Archeological museum. When we got back from the museum we had a little church service, and that was it for the group activities for the day.

I went out to dinner with my roommate Brian and some other people, we went to a crepe restaurant where I got a calzone, but should have gotten a crepe. After dinner we walked over to a hill in the city called the hill of the muses and hiked up it. It is pretty close to the Acropolis, and gave us a beautiful view of the city. It was such a pretty night, it was great sitting up there and looking over at the Acropolis and out over the rest of the city.

Now is a good time to note one of the really strange things that I’ve noticed in almost every city we’ve been to, in both Turkey and Greece. There are stray dogs everywhere. In the places where there aren’t stray dogs, there are stray cats. And we have a tendency to pick of the dogs as members of our groups. They just follow us along, herd the people at the back, and bark at cars or motorcycles that drive by.

I don’t know if it is us or the dogs, but even tonight, when six of us hiked up to the hill of the muses, we picked up two dogs that followed us up, down and almost all the way back to the hotel, about a two hour walk. They even chased off some other strays that got close to us, it was pretty cool.

Well I had better go; tomorrow we’re driving down to Corinth and then back to Athens for the night. Then Tuesday morning we fly to Rome. As always, thanks for reading and until tomorrow…

Day 18 - Kalambaka to Delphi

Today was a good day, we did a lot of driving but we saw some really cool stuff. We started up by driving up to Meteora, which is home to some pretty wild rock formations that have a bunch of monasteries and convents on top of them. We visited the monastery of the Holy Trinity (part of James Bond, For Your Eyes Only was filmed there,) and St. Anthony's monastery, which has nuns, not monks.

(The mountains that the monasteries are on top of. Holy Trinity is on the rock to the far left.)

(Holy Trinity is on the right.)

The views were pretty incredible, Holy Trinity was pretty small, I'm not sure how many monks it can hold, but it can't be very many. St. Anthony's was bigger, and it looked a little more comfortable than Holy Trinity, I'm sure that is due to the women's touch. Holy Trinity had a better view though. The monks and the nuns asked that we not take pictures so i dont' have any to show from inside either monasteries or pictures of the views of their "backyards." And I don't think I can do justice if I try to describe them, so I'll just have to keep those memories to myself (at least until some of the people who decided to take pictures anyway forward some to me.)

After the monasteries we went to an icon factory/souvenir shop. They showed us how they make icons and then they try to get us to buy them. I like the artwork on some icons so I was planning on buying one if I found one I liked, and I did find one I liked, so I got it. I also got a really cool Greek vase that I hope I will be able to find a partner for before I leave Greece.

Emily, you will be interested to know how they make the paint for the icons. They mix natural powders with egg yoke and vinegar (I think it's vinegar) and then they paint that on a cotton, gesso canvas. Then they put the canvas on a wooden base and add gold leaf and stuff like that.

Our last stop today was Thermopylae, it's the battle ground where the Persians and the Spartans fought. If anyone wants to read a fantastic book that is based around it, read Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. It's a novel, but it's pretty accurate and it's a great read.

(The monument to the Spartans at Thermopylae)

The monument to the Spartans has a giant statue of Leonidas the Spartan king who led the 300 Spartans and the other 3700 Greeks against the Persians. The gates of Thermopylae were about 60 feet wide and the Greeks held off 250,000 (modern guess) Persians for two days. On the third day the Greeks were betrayed by a shepherd who led about 20,000 Persian infantry on a mountain trail around the gates, behind the Greeks. When the Greeks realized that they were betrayed they sent most of the Greek troops home, 1000 stayed to hold off the Persians as long as they could. The law of Sparta was that everyman who went to Thermopylae must fight to the death, so all 300 of the Spartans remained. After the other Greeks retreated, the remaining 1000 charged the Persian army that was waiting beyond the "hot gates" (translation of Thermopylae) to kill as many as they could. The Greeks fought until they didn't have any spears left, then Leonidas was killed. After that the remaining Greeks retreated to the hill of Kolonus, where they could fight from high ground. Herodotus says that those that still had swords fought with them, the rest fought with hands and teeth. Eventually the Persians killed them all with arrow fire. The Greeks were all buried on the hill of Kolonus where they fell.

(The hill of Kolonus)

There is a grave stone on top of the hill that can be translated into something like this:

Go tell the Spartans, Stranger passing by,

That here, obedient to their laws we lie.

(The gravestone on top of Kolonus. There was a wreath and a fresh rose on top of it.)

All in all a little over 1000 Greeks died. About 20,000 Persians were killed.

There is an inscription under Leonidas' Statue as well. It is a quote of his from the battle. Before the fighting started the Persian emissary came to Leonidas and gave him the terms of surrender that Xerxes, the Persian king, was offering. The emissary ended by telling Leonidas and the Spartans to lay down their arms. Leonidas simply replied, "Come and take them," which is only two words in Greek. Those two words are inscribed under his statue, Molon Labe.

Well, that's it for today, Tomorrow we're going to Delphi and then on to Athens. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 17 - Thessaloniki to Kalambaka

Here is yesterday's post from Kalambaka.

This morning we left Thessaloniki and drove to Berea. Before we left I walked down to the Starbucks by the sea shore and started the day with an Americana, that was nice. Berea was the town where Paul went after he was run out of Thessalonica, it is notable because the Jews there searched to scriptures to see if what Paul said about Jesus was right and many of them believed. There wasn’t much to see in Berea, there is a pretty cool mosaic where they think the synagogue he preached may have been and there is a spring near there as well (synagogues or places of prayer always had running water next to them for the ritual washings.)

(The mosaic of Paul at Berea.)

When Paul left Berea (some of the Jews from up north who didn’t like him came to town and tried to kill him,) he went to Athens, most likely by way of a ship from Dion. So we also visited Dion today. Dion was an interesting place. It is right at the base of Mt. Olympus, where the Greeks believed the 12 main gods lived. There is an interesting story about Dion and Alexander the Great that Josephus wrote about that we heard today. Before Alexander went on his conquest that ended with him as ruler of everything from Greece to India he went to Dion to make sacrifices to Zeus and dedicate his army. And apparently he had a dream in Dion. We find out about the dream when Alexander gets to Jerusalem, when he sees the Jewish high priest Alexander goes up to him and bows down before him. And when Alexander’s generals ask him why Alexander is bowing to anyone he tells them that he saw the high priest in a dream he had at Dion. Alexander was in his tent, thinking about how he could move east and defeat the Persians and he fell asleep and had dream, where a man dressed like the high priest (including the name of God across his forehead) told him that he should go forward with all haste because he would be successful against the Persians and the man dressed as the high priest told Alexander that he would go before Alexander’s army and would make sure they were successful. And the high priest in Jerusalem was the first person that Alexander had seen who was dressed as the man in his dream, so Alexander bowed before him and told him that he would grant the Jews anything they wished. They asked that they be allowed to keep their own laws and Alexander happily agreed.

(The altar at Dion where they made sacrifices to the gods of Olympus.)

(Mt. Olympus, it's elevation is about 10,000 feet. The base of the mountain is at just about sea level.)

The other place that we visited today was called Vergina. It was the royal burial place of the Macedonian kings. Phillip the Second, Alexander’s dad was buried there, and Alexander IV, Alexander the Great’s son was buried there. It was pretty cool to see some of that stuff, it’s amazing to see how good gold looks 2300 years after it’s buried underground. The crown that they put on Phillips corpse when the burned in on a pyre looks like it was just made yesterday. It is a gold crown that is shaped to look like a really delicate oak branch full of leaves. It was way different, and way cooler than what I typically imagine when I think of a crown.

(The mound that Phillip II's tomb was buried under.)

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside Vergina because the findings there haven’t been published yet, so I was going to say that I sketched what the inside of the tomb looked like then show pictures of us getting attacked by mummies but I’m too tired to do that now. I did draw a couple of pictures of mummies on the bus, mostly playing checkers, I might post those pictures later.

Tonight we’re staying in Kalambaka, which is right at the base of the mountains that have the Meteora monasteries. Tomorrow we’re going to go visit an icon factory, where they paint icons, and visit one of the monasteries, it is supposed to be one the most beautiful places in Greece. Then we’re going to visit Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans and a few thousand other Greeks held off the Persian army (not sure on the exact number, I think Herodotus says it was a million or five million or 10 million or something like that,) for four or five or six days (I’ll give you the real numbers tomorrow.) Then we’re spending the night in Delphi, which was the center of prophecy in the pagan Greek world.

Day 16 - Kavalla to Thessaloniki

Here is my post from two days ago, I only have a few minutes here so I won't post yesterday's post until tonight, assuming I have internet, at Delphi.



Compared to the days that we had in Turkey, the days that we’ve had in Greece so far have felt really light. Today we drove from Kavalla to Thessaloniki, and on the way we stopped at Amphipolis and Apollonia. There wasn’t really much at either place, there was a giant statue of a lion at Amphipolis and Apollonia is a relatively new site, it is still mostly farmland. They have an interesting way of doing archeology in those fields. The Archeologists rent out a field for one season, do all the work they can then cover it back up with dirt and the next season the farmer plants it again.





(The lion of Amphipolis, it's about 30 feet high. A person standing next to it gets up to about the second row of bricks.)



Once we got to Thessaloniki we went to the museum here. It was a pretty nice museum, in Turkey most of the museums that we went to were mostly little places that held things taken from the local site. Most of them could be thoroughly examined in 20 to 30 minutes. The Thessaloniki archeological museum was bigger, cleaner, warmer, and looked very professional. There was a bunch of cool stuff there, Gordon, our teacher, took us to look at about 15 things that had biblical relevance, but the section with the stuff from the tombs, which was apparently the best thing to see in the museum was closed because the rain was messing with the lights in there (it rained most of the day today.) There was some cool finds from Apollonia, which was fun to see, and some really interesting stuff there about Alexander the Great.




(A funeral vase from the museum.)











(A fish mosaic for dad and Emily. Below is a close up.)





After the museum we went to our hotel, checked in, then had lunch (late lunch, it was about 3:00, I was starving.) Then we walked up to look at St. Demetrius church, which was really pretty inside. It is a Greek Orthodox church so there were a lot of icons and mosaics. I really like the artwork on some of the icons, I guess the monasteries that we are going to visit in Meteora (two days from now) are the best place to buy icons and I would like to pick up a few cool ones there. We were going to visit the crypt, but it was closed. Apparently they changed the hours pretty recently.




After that we walked down to the Roman forum (agora) here in Thessaloniki. It is a second century forum, but it is most likely right on top of the 1st century forum that Paul and Silas and Timothy were in.



Thessaloniki is a cool city, one of the advantages of having a light day here is that we had a chance to walk around and see part of the city. I really enjoyed walking around but there are parts of the city to avoid. I guess they have riots here every night in the university district. A few weeks ago (maybe at the beginning of December?) a policeman fatally shot a teenager in Athens (maybe?) and students have been rioting since then. Here in Greece the universities are places where the police can’t come and arrest people, so the kids all wear black masks so no one recognizes them, they riot close to the university, the police tear gas them, they run back to the university, and the police don’t chase them. I stayed away from the university district and walked down to the waterfront and got a Thessaloniki Starbucks mug, it’s not as cool as the Antalya mug, but that’s ok.




One of the cool things about travelling in Greece so far is that our route has been the same as Paul’s was on his second missionary journey. He came into Neapolis, went up to Philippi, then when he got run out of Phillipi he came down to Thessaloniki by way of Amphipolis and Apollonia, then after getting run out of Thessaloniki he went down to Berea. I’m not sure where exactly we’re going tomorrow but I do know that we’re going to Berea and that we’ll be spending the night in Meteora (which Paul didn’t visit, so that will be our first deviation from his journey in Greece.)



Well that’s enough for today. Thanks for reading and until tomorrow…

Day 15 - Kavalla

Today we focused on the city of Phillipi. We began the day by going to take a look at the ancient harbor of Neapolis that is here in Kavalla, and we saw a church that is allegedly on the place where Paul took his first step into Europe. We also saw some aqueducts in town and made a quick stop at a museum. Then it was off to the remains of the ancient city of Phillipi.

(The ancient harbor of Neapolis)

Phillipi was the first major city in Europe that Paul came to and worked. It was in Phillipi that he met Lydia, it was in Phillipi that he was thrown in prison for casting out a demon. It was in Phillipi that the prison that Paul was in was hit by an earthquake, but by not escaping he kept the guard from committing suicide and then converted him. And the book of Phillipians was written to the church in Phillipi.



The city itself was founded by Phillip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great's dad) because there were some very wealthy gold mines in the region. And there was also a huge battle where Mark Antony and Octavian (who eventually became Cesar Augustus) fought Brutus and Cassius for the future of Rome. Mark Antony and Octavian won so the Roman republic was dead forever and from then on (after Octavian defeated Mark Antony) Rome would always have Emperors.


Before we saw the actual city of Philipi we went down to the river to the spot where it is pretty likely that Paul met Lydia and baptized her. It was pretty cool to see, they have a little baptismal in the river now and there is a really beautiful church there too. After that we went up to the archaeological site.

(The section of the river where Paul met Lydia and baptized her)

There has been a lot of archaeological work done on the city which was cool to see, especially after seeing how much stuff in Turkey hasn't been done. We saw the theater, and had a few performances, (Dr. Rigsby sang a love song to his wife Donna, then we had a worship song in Chinese and one on Korean.) Then we saw the commercial agora, which was where the demon girl followed Paul and Silas shouting "These are servants of the most high God!" then an annoyed Paul cast the demon out. We saw the area where the judgement seat was at the agora, where Paul and Silas were pulled and then sentenced to prison, and then we saw the prison that they were probably in (there are a few hypothesises about that) After that we hiked up to the top of the Acropolis, which was a pretty good hike, it was really cold out today, but by the time I got to the top (about 30 minutes) I had taken of my coat, my sweater, my hat, my glove (I had lent my other glove out to someone,) and was just in my tee-shirt.

(Paul and Silas' prison)

From on top of the Acropolis our teacher, Gordon, gave us the layout of the battle between Mark Antony, Octavian, Brutus and Cassius, and we were able to see the different areas where the armies were laid out, their advantages and disadvantages and how it all played out. Then we hiked back down, picked up the folks who didn't want to do the hike from the coffee shop and loaded the bus back to the hotel. All in all a good day.

(The plain where the battle of Phillipi took place.)

Tomorrow we are going down to Thessaloniki, with stops at Apollonia and Amphipolis along the way, and tomorrow night I'll be posting from Thessaloniki. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 14 - Canakale to Kavalla

Well, we're in Greece. Tonight and tomorrow we actually get to stay in the same hotel, which is really nice. I did a bunch of laundry (in the sink) and now it's hanging out on the balcony. I wasn't really excited about hand washing my clothes and I've found it pretty unsatisfying but it's the only option so that's what I do. Whenever I'm washing them I just keep thinking that no matter what I'm doing, my clothes aren't going to be as clean as they would be if I had put them in a machine. All that being said, since we are at this hotel for a few days I washed some shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans because I knew they would have time to dry before I packed them back up again. I just hope that hanging them out on the balcony won't make them smell like exhaust.

Today was mostly travel. We left our hotel at 6:15 so we could take a ferry across the Dardanelles strait and then drive through the Gallopoli region for a few hours until we got to the boarder. I guess up until a few years ago the boarder crossing was pretty intense, you would unload from your bus in Turkey, exit through customs, then walk the 3/4 of a mile that is between the boarders, with soldiers and watchtowers on each side, then have to bribe someone to let you into the Greece side (or maybe it was bribe someone to get out of Turkey, I'm don't quite remember.) Now there is a bus that takes you from one side to another and you just unload for the exit stamp on your passport from Turkey, then a customs agent from Greece collects everyone's passport in a big stack, then takes them off, stamps them and brings them back. No intense walks and no bribes, all pretty boring. The bathrooms were an adventure though, I guess that's better than nothing.

We stopped in Alexandrapolis to talk about the Island of Salmonthrace and have lunch. It was really cold and I left my gloves in the bus, which was a bad decision. Our new teacher Gordon, told us the four reasons that Salmonthrace is important (he also gave us a quick and easy cure for tear gas just in case anyone decided to go looking for a riot in Thessaloniki or Athens, the cure is to eat a raw onion.) Salmonthrace is important because: some of mythology says that Poseidon, god of the sea, watched the Trojan war from there, it was the home of a major mystery religion in the New Testament times, Paul was there twice, maybe four times, and the statue 'winged victory of Salmonthrace' is from there. We got into more specifics about the mystery religions and Paul's time there (2nd journey and maybe 3rd) but I won't get into them here.

In Alexandrapolous one of the girls, who hadn't told her bank that she would be traveling abroad, had her debit card eaten by a machine because her account was on hold and she couldn't get it back because the bank was afraid of fraud. That was pretty terrifying to the rest of us, but I think just about everyone else told their bank where they were going so we didn't have any problems. I think I'll be nervous every time I use an ATM from now on though.

After Alexandrapolis we drove to Kavalla, which is on the ancient city of Neapolis, which was the port town to Philipi. Paul sailed into Neapolis when he crossed over from Asia to Macedonia. Philipi isn't around anymore but Kavala is a pretty big city. Before we got to the hotel we walked along some of the Egnatian way, which ran from Neapolis to Rome. That was cool, it was a section of road that Paul walked as he went up from Neapolis to Philipi.

(Above, modern day Kavala. On the other side of the finger pointing out to sea is the ancient port of Neapolis.)

(A section of the Egnatian way just out of Neapolis)

Tomorrow we visit what's left of the ancient harbor of Neapolis, check out a museum here in town, then head up to Philipi and hike to the top of the Acropolis (the hill that the city was built on.) Then it's back to our hotel here for the night.

Thanks for reading and until tomorrow...

Days 12 &13 - Akhisar to Assos to Canakale

Disclaimer: This post is pretty long. I don't think I'll try to squeeze two days into one post again.

Sorry I missed last night, internet trouble again. Instead of writing one post for yesterday and one for today I'm just going to meld the two into one.

Yesterday we saw the last city of the seven churches in Revelation, Pergamum. It was a pretty interesting place, it is the second place that we've seen that used to have one of the seven wonders of the world. The first was the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, in Pergamum the wonder was the altar of Zeus. It's not there anymore. An evangelist in the 6th century name John of Ephesus convinced the people in turkey to tear down the all the pagan temples. And then about 100 years ago the Germans convinced the Ottoman sultan to let them take all the pieces of the altar to Berlin and rebuild it there, so that's were it's at now. The altar was massive, 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. The smoke that went up from the sacrifices on the Altar would have dominated the sky.

In the letter in Revelation, it mentions that the throne of Satan is in Pergamum, it may have been in reference to the altar of Zeus (which is what Dr. Rigsby thinks.) It also may have been the Imperial cult temple. Pergamum was the first province in Asia to get an Imperial temple.

(Above, me in front of what's left of Zeus. I probably shouldn't be smiling so big in front of the throne of Satan. Below the Imperial Cult temple in Pergamum.)

Last night we slept in Assos, and today we visited the ancient port there. On his way to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey he decided to walk from Alexandria Troas to Assos by himself while his travelling companions sailed. Mark, our teacher think that it was because he had heard the prophecies from the churches that the Jews would arrest him in Jerusalem if he returned and he wanted to spend that time praying with God to make sure that going to Jerusalem was really the right decision. I think that is a good hypothesis.

(Part of the Roman road from Alexandria Troas to Assos)

After Assos we went to Alexandria Troas and saw the ancient port there, the water was beautiful, but there is not much there anymore. We only saw a few pillars sticking up from the water.


After that we went to Troy, Troy was cool, there have been like 11 cities there on that same spot. The oldest one dates back to something like 2800 BC. We saw sections from every city that had been there but it was really cool to see the walls of the city that they think is Homeric Troy. It was cool to imagine Achilles chasing Hector around those walls three times (even if they probably weren't real people or if they were it didn't happen like in the Iliad.)

(A ramp that ran to one of the gates of Homeric Troy, the Trojan horse may have rolled up this gate.)

Troy was the last place where I had a chance to spend some of my Turkish Liras, so I bought a few souvenirs there. I got a little wooden Trojan horse, and I got a miniature statue of the Ataturk. Ataturk is the person who's portrait you see in every building you go into in Turkey. He was the president of Turkey for like three years in the 1920's and he completely changed the country. He was the one that transitioned the country into a democracy, he changed the national alphabet from Arabic to Turkish, he secularized the country and he did a ton of other stuff. People say that he's like the Turkish George Washington, but I think that's an understatement. It sounds like the Ataturk was Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison all rolled into one. Another thing that he did was institute last names, everyone only had one name so he made everyone take a last name and he took Ataturk, which means father of the Turks.



All that said, they love Ataturk here, his face is everywhere. Every denomination of money has Ataturk on in, all the government buildings and a ton of the stores and hotels. Our hotel last night had a holographic Ataturk whose eyes followed you around the room. The funny thing about it is that the Ataturk looks like a cross between a mafia boss and Dracula, and he's always scowling. So I got a little statue of him where he's smiling and posing like the Walt Disney statue at Disneyland. It is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, I laughed for about 10 minutes straight when I saw it.


Today was a really fun day, we had some more performances at the remains of the theater in Assos. I recited/read a poem by GK Chesterton called 'A Second Childhood.' I was just planning on reading it but everyone has been so good that I tried to memorize it, I got most of it down but I still got stuck a few times, I had the book with me though so I could pick up my line where I lost it. I was nervous, but it went pretty well and it was fun. I was teasing Jin, one of my Korean friends that i was going to call her up after me on the stage to sing a song, she said that she would maybe come, but I didn't want to embarrass her so I didn't. I found later that not only was she ready to sing, but in Korea she had been part of a contemporary Christian group that recorded a cd. The more I find out about some of the Koreans that we have with us on our trip the more I am amazed at the lives they left behind in Korea to come to Talbot to study.



Another story about Jin, yesterday the hotel we stayed in was right on a little bay in Assos (it also had no hot water and some of the heaters didn't work. My conversation this morning with Jorge, one of the guys on the trip, went like this. Me: Hey Jorge, how'd you sleep last night? Jorge: Horrible man, it was freezing. Me: Yeah, those beds were pretty cold. Jorge: It wasn't just the bed, we couldn't get our heater to work. Me: Oh man, that sucks. Jorge: Yeah man, I froze my Assos off) The water in the bay was really clear, and on the rocks at the bottom we could see all sorts of sea anemones and sea urchins. Jin grew up on a little island in Korea so while we looked in the bay and saw sea urchins and anemones, she saw something different. She skipped out across the slick rocks in the bay (she is probably the most agile person I've ever seen) scooped up five or six little urchins, cracked them open with a rock, proceeded to have a late afternoon snack.



Well, I was going to try to make this a story post, where I told a few funny stories about different people on the trip and gave some impressions from my time in Turkey (we're moving on to Greece tomorrow.) But I'm sure this is longer than anyone wants to read already so I won't do that. I'll just say that after word of my upset stomach got out yesterday I ended up having acupuncture by toothpick forced upon me, and it felt like someone was trying to stab me in the had with a toothpick over and over again. Joyce (another of the Koreans) looking at my grimaces kept saying, "Make noises, Daniel, make noises, it's ok, we all know it hurts." But my stomach felt a lot better last night and it feels great today. Thanks to anyone who prayed. (another note on Joyce, we wrote little thank you notes to Mark our teacher and Mel our tour guide for Turkey, and after writing 'thank you' she drew a picture of and American flag, a Korean flag, and a Turkish flag to fill in the rest of the blank space.)



Other things that happened today, one of the guys, Phil, tried to save a baby lamb that couldn't climb up a hill to get to the rest of the sheep, only after he got the lamb up on the hill with the rest of the flock, the Shepherdess sent the whole flock of sheep running right back down the hill that the lamb was on before. Also we had another award ceremony that I emceed and (unrelated to my emceeing) this hotel has really hot water, but it's kind of brown.


Anyway, we're on to Greece in the morning. As always, thanks for reading and until tomorrow...

Day 11 - Izmir to Akhisar

Here is my post from last night. My ankle is feeling good, it's probably 90%, but I there is another think I'd appreciate prayer for. I woke up this morning with an upset stomach, probably something I ate last night, if you all could pray that it goes away quickly and doesn't cause any "emergencies" in the middle of nowhere, I'd appreciate it.

(Modern day Izmir, which sits on top of ancient Smyrna)

Our time in Turkey is running down, only two days left. Its a strange feeling, we haven't even been over here for two weeks yet, but it feels like we've been here forever. At the same time, I'm surprised and a little sad that we will be leaving Turkey so soon. There are some things that I'll miss about Turkey but most of all will probably be the beautiful landscapes. I wish that I had a lot more time to spend hiking through some of the mountains that they have here. I think that another reason I'll be sad to leave Turkey is because that will be a reminder that the end of our trip is creeping up, and I've really been enjoying myself, I don't want it to end.

Anyway, on to what we did today. Today we visited four of the seven churches that have letters written to them in the book of Revelation. We visited Smyrna, Sardis, Philidephia and Thyatira. Modern day Izmir sits right on top of Smyrna, and it is the third largest city in Turkey, with something like 3 million people, so there isn't a lot of archeology to see, most of it is buried under the modern city. There is a cool story about Polycarp, who was the Bishop of the city of Smyrna and was martyred in the theater in Smyrna. They had pulled him into the theater and the judge commanded him to renounce the atheists or die (the Christians were thought of as atheists in those days because they refused to worship the emperor or any pagan gods.) Polycarp refused, and eventually as he was pressed to renounce the atheists, he turned to the pagan crowd in the theater and renounced all the pagans as atheists. After more pressure he finally said, "For 86 years I have served Christ and he has never done me wrong, how can I blaspheme my king and my savior?" Then they tried to burn him at the stake, but he didn't burn so they stabbed him with a sword and he died.

(The temple of Artemis in Sardis. The little brick building next to it is a Byzantine church.)

The next place we visited was Sardis. We have seen so many beautiful places in Turkey, I can't really pick a place as the most beautiful, but Sardis was definitely one of my favorites. There was an old kingdom here that was called the Lydian kingdom, and they were are the first people that we know of who minted coins. There was a temple of Artemis in Smyrna and we visited that and a little Byzantine church that was next to the temple, then we drove down into the city to look at what was downtown Smyrna. Some of the stuff that archaeologists can figure out are pretty amazing, they can tell a store from a restaurant by looking at bones and materials that are buried in the ground.

After Sardis we went to Philidelphia and Thyatira, both of those ancient sites also have cities built on top of them, and there was almost nothing to see at each place. It was still cool to visit them and read each churches respective letter at each site. The book of Revelation has so much crazy stuff going on I always just figured the letters were crazy too, but it's different when you see where the cities were and you imagine Revelation making the rounds to the different churches in the Provence in Asia (which was the roman province in the southwestern part of modern day Turkey.) It makes it feel a lot more real.

Well that was it for today. Tomorrow we will see the last city of the seven churches of revelation, Pergamum. I'm not sure what else we will be doing but I'm sure it will be a busy day. Tomorrow night we will be spending the night in Assos, so I'll be posting from there.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 10 - Kusadasi to Izmir

For some reason I kept calling Domitian, Diocletian in this post. Sorry about that, the emperor who I talk about here is definitely Domitian, not Diocletian.

(For some reason I couldn't get these two pictures to move down where I want them to be. Above I'm at the burial place of John the Apostle, below is an idol of Artemis. The idol was found buried, but dates back to the first century and was definitely an object of worship. All the Artemis idols (or Diana, which is the Roman name) in would have looked like this. It was about seven feet tall.)

Even though we did the same amount of stuff today that we normally do, today seemed like an easy day. We did have less travel, which helped, and just about everything we saw today had to do with Ephesus, which made the day feel easier too. It's enough to see four different archaeological sites every day, it's a whole other thing when they are the remains of four totally different cities.




The more we see of the ancient cities the more I'm amazed at what they must have looked like 2000 years ago. Everything in these cities is marble, they are full of beautiful pillars, statues and buildings, the views are unbelievable, there are fountains and all sorts of other things. They must have been amazing. I've never been one to think that we are smarter today than people were back then, but if I were my mind would be completely changed.


Ephesus is the biggest archaeological site in Turkey, they have been working on it for over 100 years, and they have only uncovered about 20% of the city. Granted, the government only lets people "do archeology" in the summer months, but that still gives you a sense of the size that these cities were.


Ephesus used to be a port city, now it is a few miles inland, 2000 years of silting by a river will do that to a port. We walked into the city from what would have been the land side back in the day, it was where the official Romans would do their business. That was were the Roman agora was (the governmental marketplace) its where the town clerk in Acts 19:35 would have been while the riot started by the silversmiths began to take place in the lower part of the city. There was also a temple dedicated to Artemis in Roman agora and a few temples dedicated to Emperor worship, one to Augustus and his wife and one to Diocletian.

(Part of the statue of Diocletian that was at the Imperial cult temple in Ephesus. Everyone hated him so much that after he was assassinated the Roman senate ordered all his images destroyed and his name erased forever, some pieces still survived though. That section of arm is about five feet tall and almost as big around as me.)

The acoustics of the city are set up in such a way that even if people were shouting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians" for two hours in the theater (which is in the lower part of the city) they wouldn't have been able to hear it in the upper part of the city. (which is probably why the mob yelled for two hours without anyone stopping them.)

(The theater in Ephesus opened out to the bay, away from the upper city and the Roman agora.)

In Ephesus we also saw some of the terrace houses (where the rich people lived, they were ridiculous, ask me about them,) we saw the commercial agora (where the riot in Acts 19 started and where Paul preached regularly,) we saw the theater, and we saw the ancient library.



All in all we spent about four hours in Ephesus, and I can't really imagine spending much less time there. After Ephesus we had lunch at a place where they show you how Turkish carpets are made and then try to sell them to you. I thought about buying one but I decided


to pay my tuition for next semester instead. Since I was busy not buying carpets, I did have a few minutes to sketch a little bit, which was fun until everyone else who wasn't buying anything decided to come and watch me, that was less fun.



After lunch we went to see what is left of St. John's Basilica in Ephesus. This is was the alleged burial place of John the Apostle (He spent some time in Ephesus as Bishop) Our teacher, Mark, thinks that it probably was the place where he was buried, the tradition is really early and very consistent. The remains aren't there though, they were taken to Constantinople in the 6th century.

After that we saw what is left of the temple to Artemis, which was one of the seven wonders of the world and was the largest place of worship in the ancient world. The belief was that the idol of Artemis that was in the temple fell from the sky. If you see the picture of Artemis I posted above, you can she that she was definitely ugly enough to have crashed into earth from outer space.

And our last stop of the day was the Ephesus museum, where they put some of the stuff they found in Ephesus under a roof (stuff like the Artemis statue and Diocletian head and arm.) After the museum we drove to Izmir (ancient Smyrna) for the night. Amazingly we only have three days left in Turkey, then we're on to Greece.

I hope everyone is well and as always, thanks for reading. Until tomorrow...

Day 9 - Pamukkale to Kusadasi

Here's my post from last night. After dinner tonight I'll try to post about Ephesus today. Thanks to anyone who prayed for me, my ankle felt a lot better today.

Wow, another really busy day. I was thinking back on what we did today and I couldn’t believe that our visit to Colossae and Laodicea had only been this morning, it seems like it was a week ago.

In addition to visiting Laodicea and Colossae today, we visited Didymus, which was the sacred city of the other city we saw today. I can’t exactly remember what its name was, but I think it was Miletus. At least I’m pretty sure it started with an M.

Every morning we have someone do devotions and today it was my turn. I had a class last semester where every class our prof. would randomly ask someone to give a little devotion for the class. So at the beginning of the semester I threw together a quick, easy one that I thought might be applicable to seminary students. And a month ago, when I signed up for today’s devotions and realized that no one on the trip had been in that class, I decided to just use the same one. It just happened to turn out that my devotion was from Colossians, and the day that I ended up giving it was on the day we visited Colossae. And the emotional and spiritual timing of it was perfect too. It was cool to see God work through me that way today.

(The Colossian tell is between my fingers. I'm not sure what possessed me to make that face.)

There wasn’t much to see at Colossae, it is just a big mound (the technical word is ‘tell.’) I guess an Australian University has submitted a proposal to begin excavations on the tell, but they want to do it in the winter months (their summer, so students could go work on it) and the Turks say that they only allow excavations in June, July, and August. No one is sure why that is the case, but those are the rules. Regardless of the fact that we didn’t see any ruins or anything, it was cool to stand at the base of the tell (it was too muddy to climb up to the top) read the book of Philemon and think about the runaway slave Onesemus coming back with Paul’s letter in his hand to face his old master Philemon.

Laodicea was very cool. We read the letter to the Laodiceans from Revelation in the theater there. The city of Laodicea was very wealthy (it was a banking center,) it was a medical center famous for its eye salve, and it was a textile center famous for its black wool. But Jesus tells them that they are poor, blind, and they need to put on the white clothing of God. The lukewarm water stuff may either be to contrast the water of Laodicea with that of Heiropolis (hot springs) and Colossae (cold mountain streams) or it may be a reference to the fact that the springs that were Laodicea’s water source were two kilometers away from the city and after the water had travelled that distance by pipe, it was lukewarm. By using this image, Jesus is contrasting usefulness of hot water (recuperative) and cold water (refreshing) with lukewarm water, which is good for nothing.

(I'm standing in front of an old water tower/container in Laodicea.)

After Laodicea (which is very close to both Colossae and Hierapolis) we drove down to the coast again to visit Didymus and Miletus. Didymus means twin, and it was the twin of Miletus because Didymus had a temple of Apollo there and Miletus had one to Artemis, and Apollo and Artemis were twins. There was a sacred road that ran between the two that pilgrims followed. We could see a lot of the remains of Apollo’s temple at Didymus and it was enormous. Only two of the pillars were at full height and they were massive. Didymus is also where I sprained my ankle. So I was in moderate pain as we went through Miletus. I remember that the area around the city was beautiful (as always) the city was massive, it used to be on the ocean, and they worshipped dolphins there. I’m pretty sure that it’s in the Bible somewhere too. Fortunately I took notes, I just can’t remember what I wrote.

(Look really closely, I'm standing in front of the pillar base in front of the right pillar. This is the picture I sprained my ankle to get.)

(The theater in Miletus.)

And that was pretty much it for today. During our bus rides I hosted our semi-regular awards ceremony (paper plates that point out notable things people have done on the trip,) David Park, who I will have to spend some time writing about one of these days, performed acupuncture on a carsick person with a toothpick, and someone bought and passed around some candy that I’m pretty sure was tree-sap flavored. Oh, we also got to spend some time with a Turkish pastor and his wife, which was really, really cool. So, all in all it was a typical day.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 8 - Perge to Pamukkale

I couldn't connect to the internet last night, but I did write up a quick post. So here is what we did yesterday. I will try to post what we did today in the morning. One quick note before I go to bed, I sprained my ankle today, I was running down to get a picture in front of a giant pillar at the temple of Apollo at Didymus and I hit a patch of mud and my left foot slid out in front of me. if you all could pray that it doesn't hurt tommorow I'd appreciate it. Tommorow we're going to Ephesus which is one of the best sites to visit in Turkey, which means there is lots of stuff and lots of walking. Thanks.


We ran into some road trouble today, so instead of seeing Laodicea and Colossae today, we are leaving extra early tomorrow to see those sites.


Today we visited the ancient site of Patera at the coast and then we drove up inland and saw Hierapolis.


Hierapolis, Colossae, and Laodicea were the three cities that lay in the Lycus river valley. Hierapolis was well known for its hot springs. And now there are huge calcium deposits where the water used to run off the cliffs, they kind of look like petrified waterfalls, bright white, petrified waterfalls. Hierapolis is up on the top of a hill, like so many of these cities are. It was quite massive and has the best preserved Roman Theater in Turkey. The theater holds between ten to fifteen thousand people, and is in good enough shape that they still hold concerts there.



I think that Hierapolis is only mentioned in the Bible once, at the end of the book of Colossians, but it may have some significance to the book of Revelations (I’ll try to mention that tomorrow)




(Here I am standing on the top of the calcium deposits left by the springs. I bought that hat from an old lady selling stuff next the Hittite water shrine the other day. I also seem to have simultaneously lost my stocking cap I brought with me, which is unfortunate since it fit significantly better.)


The first place we saw today was the ruins at Patera. Patera was a major city in the Lycian League, which actually was mentioned by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers as a major influence on creation of the U.S. representative government. Patera was beautiful. It seemed like every direction I looked I saw one of those paintings by the French romantic landscape artists where they threw an ancient ruin into beautiful countryside. I decided today that if I every build a winter home, it will be in the ancient ruins of Patera, it was that nice.


Patera is a city that Paul changes ships in on his way to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey. The just recently uncovered the lighthouse that was there in the 1st century and would have guided Paul’s ship in or back out to sea.


In all of the theaters we visit, there will be opportunities for people perform something for the rest of the group. Dr. Rigsby got us started today with a song, “I’m my own Grandpa.” I recorded it on my digital camera and i was going to post it, but I decided I'm going to ask him first, to make sure he doesn't mind. Hopefully I'll get that up for you tomorrow.


Sorry for just the one picture, if I can post the video of Dr. Rigsby singing, it will more than make up for it. Thanks for reading. Until tomorrow…

Update, the hotel that we stayed in in Pamakkale had a "thermal pool" that was fed from the hot springs from ancient Iconium. I spent about an hour in it, it was amazing. Most of us just relaxed, except for some of the Koreans who did laps. That was amazing too, they're the best.

Day 7 - Antalya to Perge

(Starbucks opened early for a few of us in Anatalya today, and I got a pretty cool mug.)

(One of the narrow streets from Antalya.)

(At the ancient port of Andrache, where Paul sailed out of on his trip to Rome, the ship that he sailed on from here was the one that was shipwrecked.)

Wow, it is amazing how much you can fit into one day. Our in our case, it's amazing how much you can fit into day after day after day. We have been driving about 250-350 miles a day, and we see three or four major sites each day with a few small things added in sometimes. We get up at 5:30am, leave at 7:00-7:30am and get to the new hotel about 7:00pm. If you're wondering if I've had a particularly busy day, one way to tell is if all the pictures are up top like today. (Another way to tell is if I had time to spellcheck.) My batteries ran out last night so here is what we did yesterday (most of it written last night.)

Today was another busy day with tons of really cool stuff. We saw a harbor that Paul sailed out of, and one he sailed into. We saw another great archeological site and we continued a string of really, really nice hotels. If anyone feels like vacationing in Turkey I have some fantastic recommendations.

Today I began to wonder if there is a limit to the number breathtaking views you can have in a day. Turkey is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, and multiple times every day I am in awe at the scenery. We came down from the Taurus mountain range today to the coast and sea coast is as beautiful as the mountains.

Believe it or not I can't think of the names of all the sites we saw today, we saw the Perge, we saw Attalia (which I don't think is mentioned directly, but Paul must have sailed there to get to Perge) and we saw Andrache, which is the Port city of Myra which Paul sailed through on his way to Rome. And we saw Myra which was the city that Santa was from. I lost a race in the ancient staduim in Myra and a Russian tourist gave me a thumbs down. In Andrache I went down to splash my hand in the water a little bit, and after avioding one of my Korean big sisters attempts to push me in the water a wave came in and hit me about shin high.

Like always there are two many great and funny stories to tell so I'm just posting a few pictures and a few sentances. We're staying in Kalkan tonight, and the hotel here may be my favorite hotel I've ever been in. (Yes David, that includes that includes the Montreux Palace.) I don't remember everything we're doing tomorrow, but I know we're going to Colosae (and I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong,) and Laodicea.

As always thanks for reading. I'm not sure where I'll be posting from tonight, but I'm pretty sure it starts with a P. I know it's inland and I'm rooting for the somewhere in the Taurus mountains agian. Until tommorow (or in this case tonight)...

Day 6 - Konya to Antalya

(The Via Sebaste)

I couldn't get through the connection at the hotel last night, but here is a post I wrote yesterday on the bus.

Today was a good day. We left Konya, which was an interesting city. The landscape around all these cities are beautiful, to call the the Taurus mountains, which these cities are in gorgeous, would be an understatement. But it is kind of cold here, while we’ve had nice days, the last few days have had a lot of snow and ice. In Konya, (which was Iconium in Biblical times) I guess they burn charcoal for heat, and the smoke just sits everywhere in the city. I’m sure it isn’t helped by the fact that all the Turks smoke non-stop. There was a haze that was everywhere, from the hotel lobby to the mall. It must be weird to buy clothes that already smell like smoke.

Since today was Sunday, we had a little worship service as we drove out of town, Dr. Rigsby preached and we sang. As we were driving up in the mountains out of Konay, I was looking down on the city, a city that had a church planted there by the Apostle Paul, a city that was most likely one of the cities that the book of Galatians was addressed to, and now it is a city that has one catholic church, which has about 10 members, and the rest of the city is Muslim. We were singing Holy, Holy, Holy, and as I looked down on this haze filled city that had turned away from God, we were singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, tho the darkness hide thee, tho the eyes of sinful man, thy glory may not see…” And I was really struck by the fact that God is still great, God is still holy and glorious, even when people are sinful and Satan seems to win some places, God is still the same, God is always holy and good and glorious, regardless of how we respond to him.

We saw a few things today, but the best things were the Via Sebaste and Pisidian Antioch. The Via Sabaste was one of the main Roman roads that ran through this section of the road, and it is the road that Paul took as he travelled from Pisidian Antioch to Iconium. It was really cool to get out of the bus and walk along a section of road that Paul and Barnabas walked on as the planted churches and Paul and Timothy walked as they visited and encouraged those churches.

We also saw Pisidian Antioch, which is a really well preserved archeological site of the city that Paul visited in Acts. It was really cool to walk around and get a feel for what the city would have been like, and as all these places in what was ancient Galatia, the scenery was stunning. The ancient cities were all built on the tops of hills, I’m not sure if they did that just in imitation of Rome, if they did it because they were more easily defensible, or if it was because they were more visible to travelers.

We also saw a Hittite water shrine, which was cool, and I was on the losing end of two snowball fights, usually because of Jin, who is one of my Korean nu-nas (older sisters.) Even with snow in my ear and inside my shirt I still ended up less wet than our teacher, Dr. Mark Wilson, after warning us to be careful around the Hittite water shrine, he slipped and fell into the little pond around the shrine.

Anyway, thanks for reading and until tomorrow…