Day 5 - Adana to Konya

I'm pretty worn out, so this post will be pretty short. We stayed the night in Adana last night, then our first stop was in Tarsus. Tarsus was the city that Paul was from (Saul of Tarsus) It was cool, they have uncovered a road there that is from the 1st century, Paul probably walked on it at some point.

There is also a gate there called Cleopatra's gate. Tarsus has a gate named after Cleopatra because Tarsus is the city where Cleopatra and Mark Antony met. Shakespeare describes their Tarsus meeting at the beginning of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. There was also an old mosque in town that the muslims say has the grave of Daniel the prophet. Muslim tradition says that he died and was buried in Tarsus.

Then we drove on through Iconium (modern day Konya) and on to Lystra. The drive from Adana through Tarsus to Iconium is about 350 miles. And the road runs along pretty much the same path that Paul woudl have taken. But instead of by bus, he did it on foot.

The drive crosses over a mountainrange and runs along inside the mountians for most of the trip. It was beautiful, there was snow pretty much the whole way. Growing up in Tarsus and living in Antioch, Paul must have been a guy that liked the mountians.

Iconium we will see most of tommorow, it was a place where he and Barmabas stopped on his first jouney. The were run out of town by the Jews and they went on ot Derby and Lystra. Lystra is the town where the people thoguht they were gods and they brought out animals to sacrafice to them.

Ok, so I fell asleep writing this last night, and I only have a few minutes to post this before we load the bus. So up top is a picture of the mountians that we drove through and Paul would have walked through. Two more interesting things to say, Lystra is in the middle of nowhere, and it was in the middle of nowhere in the 1st century. But Timothy was from Lystra, so no matter where you are from, God can use you. And second interesting point, Konya smells like a fireplace, even inside of our shower.

As always thanks for reading,

Daniel

Day 4 - Antakya to Adana

Getting on the bus this morning in Antioch was an experience I won't forget for quite some time.

When we were having lunch in the Bazaar in Istanbul (the Bazaar that I hated), my roommate Brian and I were joking about the lamb that he had ordered for lunch. I think he offered me a taste and I turned him down and he asked me if I had a problem with eating really cute animals. After assuring him that I did, I asked him if he would have ordered kittens or puppies if lamb weren’t on the menu. Then we joked about ordering just cute animals, puppies, kittens, lamb, and fuzzy yellow chicks.

This morning, when we got on the bus our tour guide got on the microphone and said, “Some of you may have noticed that there is something that looks like blood on our tires this morning, in case you’re wondering, yes, it’s real blood.” At this point I was thinking, “well I guess our driver ran over a squirrel or something this morning, I’m not sure why she is making an announcement about this.” Our tour guide went on. “Since it is New Year, and we are the first big group to go this hotel this year, and they think that they will have a good year, our hotel sacrificed a lamb this morning to help them have a good year. They give the meat to the poor and they splashed the blood on our tires. The blood will keep us safe on our trip, according to tradition.” I’m not sure what Melkem (our Turkish tour guide) expected from us after making this announcement, but what she got was 31 shocked, open-mouthed stares. After I was past the initial shock I couldn’t help but think, “I guess we're lucky there were no puppies or kittens available.”

Today was devoted to Selucia Perea and Antioch.

Acts 13:1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. 4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

(Antioch, modern day Antokya)

The church in Antioch played a huge role in the evangelism of the gentile world. Paul taught in Antioch before he left on his missionary journeys, and it was Antioch that he returned to. Antioch had about 250,000 people in the Roman times, but it wasn’t a port city, so to sail off to Cypress, Paul and Barnabas had to go through Selucia Perea. Selucia Perea isn’t there anymore, the port isn’t even there anymore.

(both are pictures of where Selucia Perea was)

It was another beautiful day here. Antioch is pretty ratty town now, but I can see why Paul lived here, the landscape is absolutely beautiful. Great snow packed peaks surround the town, and the town was designed so that the sea breeze blew in through the streets. And it would have been right on the main Roman road that ran all the way to Jerusalelm (Antioch is only about 350 miles to Jerusalem.) It was a great day to hike around on some of the mountains around here.

Now on to my Korean lessons. Yesterday I asked a few Koreans what happy New Year was in Korean. Turns out Happy New Year is a full sentence in Korean. I think it’s something like se he bo mani padera. I guess that Joyce and Jin decided that teaching me Korean was fun because they haven’t stopped since. It typically goes something like this, we’re sitting on the bus, and Joyce says, “Daniel review! What’s number one?!” And I think of a Korean word that they taught me, and she keeps counting up until I can’t think of one (which is typically around four or five) then she tells me a new one. I can’t even come close to repeating it, so I say “slower” and Joyce says, “No, it means don’t eat.” And I say, “no, say the word slower” so she gives the word to me syllable by syllable, with each syllable getting louder and louder and the last one ends with her pointing at me. So learning the word for don’t eat, mochjima, goes, “Moch –jI-MA!” and ends in a point. Then I try to say it back and all the Koreans laugh and then complement me on my accent. I think they're lying. Jin helps out by yelling at me in Korean to not do whatever it is I’m doing. So if I’m about to take a bite of dinner, she’ll yell, "mochjima!" So far it’s been really fun.

Other things that happened today…we stopped to get some water at a convenience store and four Jr. High Turkish girls got on the bus to say hi to us and giggle. We gave them some candy and they posed while people took pictures. Joyce told them to sing a song and then counted, “1, 2, 3, 4!” and started clapping a beat for them. They didn’t sing. Later I asked her if she asked every new person she met to sing her a song, she said “No, but there were four of them!” I guess that’s explanation enough.

We also saw a giant canal that was cut out of rock to keep water from flooding Selucia Perea, we saw some tombs cut into a mountain side, we visited a mosaic museum and we stumbled upon a protest against Israel. And a good chunk of the day was spent driving. Tommorow is our busiest day yet, we are driving up from Adana (where we are now) to Tarsus (where Paul was from) and then on to somewhere that I don't remember off the top of my head. Tomorrow is a full day with an early start so thanks for reading and good night.

Day 3 - Istanbul to Antakya

(For anyone interested, I added a couple of pictures of St. Sophia to yesterday's Istanbul post.)


Well I'm in Antakya tonight, the city is also known as Hatay. Back in New Testament times the city was known as Antioch, the church here was Paul's home church as he spread the Gospel.


(a beautiful day in Istanbul)


This morning was a beautiful morning in Istanbul, the air was brisk and the sky was clear and blue, it was a great change from the wet weather of the previous two days. After we packed up and left the hotel, we went to the Turkish Archaeological museum, then it was lunch and then the airport.

We also walked past the church where the first council of Constantinople took place. (It is closed, we couldn't go in.) The Council of Constantinople was a huge deal. I don't have time to go into what happened there, but if your curious, look up the creed of Constantinople. That was what they covered.

(Above, St. Irene's, where they had the first council of Constantinople. Left, Jin, (who tried to assign me Korean homework tonight, myself, and Brian, (not my roomate) in Istanbul. Across the Bay is Calcedon, where another really important church council took place.)


The Archaeological museum was pretty great, We saw a bunch of stuff from Ancient Assyria (whose kings had great names like "Tiglath-Pilaser III," I think it's awesome that they decided to reuse that name three times. If I ever have a boy I'm going to name him Tiglath-Pilaser Mattern IV. Or maybe I'll name my next dog that, I haven't decided yet.)

We also saw: Hammurabi's code, the oldest piece of Hebrew writing in the world, the inscription from Hezekiah's tunnel (it's in the Bible) and a block of stone from Herod's temple in Jerusalem (the one that Jesus would have been in) that threatens death to any gentile who went into the next courtyard. Pictures of stuff taken in museums are boring though (and in the case of Hammurabi's code, blurry. The Turks have something against people using tripods, ask me about it sometime.) So here is a picture of a cat posing like an Assyrian Lion.

After the museum was mostly travel, flying from Istanbul to Adana, then driving to Antakya. Tomorrow were going to a mosaic museum, we're going to look at the church of Antioch, then we're driving back to Adana, where we'll spend the night. So tomorrow night's post will be from Adana. I'd like to tell a couple of funny stories about Joyce and Jin, two of the Korean girls who have taken it upon themselves to have me speaking Korean before the trip is over. Hopefully tomorrow night there will be time for that.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Happy New year

Happy new year everyone, man this blogger thing is frustrating sometimes. That last post didn't come out like it should have, it was supposed to have three more pictures of St. Sophia, a joke I stole from Seth , and an update letting everyone know that it what I thought were doves were actually seagulls scared up in the air by the fireworks, which apparently wern't that great.

I'll try to post the Sophia pictures from Antioch, they were pretty cool.


So, happy new year, yes I'm writing from the future, no zombie attacks yet. (thanks for the joke seth).

Day 2 - Istanbul

I think a made a huge mistake today. I stayed in instead of going out for new years eve. In Egypt last year New years wasn't a big deal, and I kind of thought that it would be the same here. So I stayed in to get some work done and try and get a good nights sleep (I felt really jet lagged this evening). It's midnight and I've been listening to live Turkish music playing through my window all night and now I see fireworks and a huge flock of doves flying from the square where my roommate and some other people went for new years. Apparently new years is a big deal in Istanbul. I am absolutely kicking myself right now.

Oh well, on to today.

Today was our full day in Istanbul, we visited the Blue mosque, St. Sophia (also called Hagia Sophia, we had a change of plans), the Byzantine Hippodrome, the indoor Bazaar, and the Byzantine cistern.

Istanbul is a great city, it reminds me of Europe and it also reminds me of Egypt (but clean). It is a really old city, Constantine (who became the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian) moved out of Rome and made Constantinople the capital of the Roman Empire sometime in the 300’s AD. The section of the city that our hotel is in has tall apartments and shops that line narrow cobbled streets, really cool.

The Blue mosque was cool, it reminded me of the Alabaster mosque in Cairo. I think that the insides of mosques all kind of look the same. There are are definitely some differences, but generally it’s the same stuff: carpets, pillars, gold leaf calligraphy. Cool stuff, but it probably means more if you’re a Muslim or can read the Arabic calligraphy.

(The Blue mosque, inside and outside)

The hippodrome is mostly shops and buildings now, back in the day it was a giant stadium where they raced horses and chariots, it held somewhere between thirty to forty thousand people. All that is left now are a few walls and some monuments that used to line the center of the stadium. The coolest monuments were an Egyptian obelisk that dated from 1400 BC, it still looks new, and a brass monument of intertwined snakes. I guess the brass monument was built by the Greeks to celebrate their successful defense against the Persian invasion. It was inscribed with all 52 of the city states that fought against the Persians, but it hasn’t withstood the weather as well as the Egyptian obelisk has and the names are all gone (as well as the heads of the snakes).

(St. Sophia)

St. Sophia was awesome. It was the built in the 6th century and was the largest and most beautiful church in the world for something like 800 years. Then it was the biggest mosque in the world. When the church was turned into a mosque they decided to cover the mosaics and frescoes with plaster instead of destroying them, (they don’t allow any images in mosques, especially when the images are giant pictures of Jesus.) The plaster has preserved the mosaics really well, and since the St. Sophia was changed from a mosque to a museum, they have uncovered some of the mosaics of the early church. They are really beautiful. The inside is gigantic, the statue of liberty could stand under the center dome and not reach the ceiling.

(Inside St. Sophia, where the pulpit of the church would have been.)

I hated the Bazaar, we had two hours of ‘free time’ there, but it was more like two hours of torture. It reminded me two much of the guys hustling out of shops in Egypt. Lunch was good though, chicken kabobs and Turkish apple tea.

After we got back to the hotel my roommate Brian and I decided to walk down to the old Byzantine cisterns. They were cool too. They still had some water in them and yes dad there were fish. Not trout though, mostly big goldfish and suckers..

Tomorrow we are going to a few archaeological museums, the church of St. Bacchus, and then we are flying down to Antioch, where we get to really start checking out the early church sites. Antioch was Paul’s home base for his missionary journeys into Asia minor (modern day Turkey) and Greece.

Thanks for reading, tomorrow I’ll be posting from Antioch.

Day 1 - Arriving in Istanbul

Well, we've arrived in Istanbul. I think it's something like 2 in the morning here. Which means the wake-up call should be coming in about four and and a half hours. The flights weren't bad, they weren't great either but Air France was nice.

It was fun to sit in the airport in Paris for a few hours. The French kids (and by kids I mean anyone younger than me) all dress like they just stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad. I'm really excited to see some of the city and do some people watching when I come back through in January.




We had a five hour layover in Paris and I did some sketching in the sketchbook that Emily and Lucas gave me. Here is a picture of what I spent most of that layover looking at and sketching.


It took a little longer than I thought it would. Every time I looked up I saw a new beam or cable, but it was good practice and it was fun.




First impressions of Istanbul are that it's chilly here. I guess it's been snowing in the morning. The air felt good after spending hours in planes and airports, and the police lady who stamped my passport was really cute.







Here is a slightly fuzzy picture of our hotel.





Tommorow we are off to the Blue Mosque, the Church of St. Sophia, the market and some other places that I've forgotten.


I'm off to try and sleep, but being in a new country, hearing that the Broncos fired Shanahan and that Balgovitch appointed a senator today, I think my mind will be in overload.

Until tommorow...

On the way...

Well I'm at the airport, LAX, waiting for our flight to leave for Paris, then Istanbul. I'll be honest, the feeling I got when the check in agent asked for my final destination, and I said Istanbul, was pretty awesome.

So, our flight to Paris is delayed a little, then we have about a five hour layover, then its on to Istanbul. I'm not going to post a picture of LAX for anyone, but here is a picture of a baby deer that walked by the cabin in Lake City on Friday.

Next post will be from Istanbul...