Kristen and Mike

My best friend from Clemson, Kristen, and her then fiance...now hubby, Mike, came to visit Turkey in November!  Unfortunately, Jordan wasn't able to take the time off to tour the country with us, but I had the time of my life visiting Cappadocia and Ephesus with the two of them!  We hit the ground running in Cappadocia and then flew to Izmir in order to reach Selcuk and Ephesus.  We all had such a good time, and it was so comforting to have a little piece of home come to visit!  Here's the tale of our adventures through some of our pictures...please enjoy!!!

Kristen and I at the Goreme Open Air Museum. The museum has more than 30 carved-from-rock churches with frescoes inside.  These churches date from the ninth century to the eleventh century.

Cappadocia is known for it's pottery!  In the background, you can see old cave houses.

Mike and Kristen in the underground city.

The happy couple standing in front of the "fairy chimney" rock formations.

We even had a little snow during our visit to Cappadocia!

 

 

To finish our time in Cappadocia, we partook in our first Turkish bath!!!  We had a blast and were VERY exfoliated!!!

 

Now on to Ephesus and Selcuk...Ephesus has been inhabited since 6,000 BC!!!  This town has so much history and so many stories.  Please enjoy the few pictures of our journey to this amazing town!

The Virgin Mary's house.  This is the last house where Mary lived.  There is more information here...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Virgin_Mary

Visitors can drink from these springs located directly in front of Mary's house.  They say these springs hold healing powers.

Although Ephesus is known for it's thousand year old ruins and sites, we couldn't help but chuckle at this little souvenir shop's sign.  Oh Turkey...how you make me laugh!

Kristen and I posing in front of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.  Do you recognize the swoosh of her pose???

More Roman ruins.  This street was walked by Julius Ceasar, Cleopatra, Marc Antony, etc.  In fact, Cleopatra's younger sister is buried within these ruins. 

This is the smaller of two amphitheaters located in the ruins of Ephesus.  This amphitheater was used for government meetings while the bigger amphitheater was used for the gladiators and entertainment.  The bigger theater is estimated to hold 44,000 people!!!  That's more than half of Clemson's football stadium...to put it in perspective!!!

An old school version of the little boy's room...Roman style!

The remains of houses built from 1BC-76AD.  These houses belong to the wealthiest of their time.  The mosaics are incredible and it's a wonder how they have all stayed in tact for thousands of years!

The three of us in front of the library ruins.

Inside of St. John's Basilica.  It was built in the 6th century and is believed to be the burial site of the Apostle John.

Exterior of St. John's Basilica.

Hotel Bella...the perfect little hotel in Selcuk!

First Visitors Arrive!!!

Jordan and I have been so very blessed to have so many visitors here in Turkey!  I never imagined we would have a revolving door of loved ones coming to our new land to explore it with us!

Our first visitors arrived in late October 2011!  Mr. and Mrs. DiPaolo are the parents of my best friend from college, Kristen.  I have always had such a special and close relationship with them and after a European vacation with them in college, I was told that I'm the preferred DiPaolo traveler :)! They have always promised that no matter where Jordan and I end up, they're coming to visit...and visit they did! 

We met the DiPaolo's in Cappadocia which is just a short four hour drive north of Adana.  We spent two days enjoying all sorts of adventures with them.  We toured one of the largest discovered underground city, the pigeon valley, cave houses and churches, and even stayed in a cave hotel!  In true Mr. DiPaolo fashion, we ate great food and drank great wine!  The highlight of the trip was a sunrise hot air balloon ride!  We couldn't stop taking pictures, so here are just a few to share our trip!

An early morning view from our hotel room!

The boys stop for hot cay (tea) on a cold hike through Pigeon Valley in Cappadocia.

Group shot out side of a cave church.  The early christians would hold church in caves to hide from the Romans.

Cappadocia is know for their clay and ceramics.  We toured a ceramic factory and Jordan was able to take a shot at making a clay bowl.  Check out his awesome pants!

 

 

Underground city...When the Romans attacked, the early christians would spend up to two months hiding in these underground city to avoid death and persecution.  They used low narrow tunnels as a defense mechanism from the intruders.

Ready for our very chilly, very early morning hot air balloon ride!!!

Beautiful!  This was the highlight!

We survived!!!

    

Remember that time I had a blog???

I knew it!  I just knew it!  I knew I wouldn't be great at keeping up with this thing!  My last post, as you can see, was in October 2011 after a whirlwind of a vacation to Istanbul and Munich with Jordan.  So many incredible memories have been made and so much has happened in the past 9-10 months that I feel I owe a much overdue recap to the people that do still check this blog on the reg hoping that I've updated it with my latest adventures and tales of life abroad (hmm...hmm...Lawren).  So sit back, relax, and enjoy the pictures, videos, and stories from our life here, there, and everywhere!      

Istanbul & Munich

Jordan and I took a little vacation to Istanbul and Munich at the end of September.  We spent three days gallivanting around Istanbul and then headed to Munich to meet up with Kelly and Robby for Oktoberfest.  We saw a lot of history and drank a lot of beer.  I guess you could say it was the perfect vacation!  Here are some pictures of our journey...

ISTANBUL

We stayed at the Avicenna Hotel that was perfectly located in the Sultanhamet area of Istanbul.  We were within walking distance to all of the big site seeing spots.

View from our room.

We took a guided tour of the blue mosque which was beautiful!  The next three pictures are all of the blue mosque.

You really only had to cover your shoulders but as I walked through the security line and whipped out my scarf, the Turkish security guard felt the need to wrap me up like a hot tortilla!  I felt legit!

No shoes allowed!

We took a 2 hour boat tour and were sandwiched between Europe and Asia the whole time.

We also had a guided tour of the Istanbul hippodrome.  The hippodrome was used for chariot races and gladiator battles during the 3rd and 4th centuries.  This monument was put in the middle of the hippodrome in 390AD, however, it is not a Roman or Turkish artifact.  This monument was actually built in Egypt in 1490 BC!!!  That means it is roughly 3,500 years old!  It's a solid block of granite and is in extremely good shape!

This man made this...

This treat is like something I've never tasted before.  Jordan and I were wondering around the city when we noticed the man in the picture above making this taffy like sucker.  We had no idea what it was but couldn't resist the pretty colors.  Once we dug in to it it tasted just like melted gummy bears!!!  Delicious!  Later on in our trip we noticed that this taffy gummy bear sucker was an illegal operation.  We started observing police officers rolling by on their segweys looking for the taffy men.  When the taffy men saw police come they would pick up their trays and run out of site.  Instead of illegally selling watches and purses, they were in the hot taffy sucker business! 

MUNICH - Bring on the beer!

Welcome to the Hippodrom!  This was our first stop for Oktoberfest!

The German band that played very festive music that made you want to wave your stein high in the air to the beat!

Our waitress, Stephi, had no issues carrying ten liters of beer all at once!  I honestly don't know how she did it.  Jordan and I had bruises on our hands from drinking out of these steins...that's how heavy just one liter of beer was!

Robby and Jordan made friends with some German biker dudes.

This is pretty much the only site we saw that didn't involve beer.  I honestly couldn't tell you what its name is or any history behind it.  We just stood there waiting for the tiny dancing people to dance at the top of the hour but we missed it!

One of many that was consumed!

Day two of Oktoberfest...what a happy family!

LOVE this picture!  We had such a great time and it was so comforting seeing my sister...even if it was for only two days!

Here's what you missed...

I'm not even going to make any excuses for my lack of posts!  All I'm going to say is...here's what you missed...

Remember to click on the pictures to make them bigger!!!

Gaziantep Day Trip
Jordan and I took a day trip to Gaziantep where we went to the zoo, did some shopping at an old bazaar, and visited the largest mosaic museum in the world!

The pretty star fountain!

Meet Gabi, the Gaziantep Zoo elephant.

Read what the Gaziantep Zoo had to say about Gabi.  We got a kick out of reading all of the English translation of these signs.

Mickey Mouse's ugly step brother!

A giraffe never looked so good!

I didn't take a picture of the bizaar so I found one on google.  There were so many things to look at!

Mosaic museum.

Tarsus and Mersin Day Trip
Jordan and I also spent a day traveling to Tarsus and Mersin where we saw several historical landmarks...

The Romans built this waterfall and river in the 3rd century.

This road doesn't look like much but Julius Caesar himself walked on this Roman road that was described as being like 5th Avenue in NYC today.

The apostle Paul was born in Tarsus.  As you can see, this is St. Paul's well where he drank frequently from as it was said to contain curative properties.

Jordan getting some of that holy water! 

St. Paul's church

Tarsus is also the place where Cleopatra and Marc Antony first met.  Google says,"The Tarsus gate of Cleopatra, also called the “Sea Gate,” still stands today, though it has been significantly restored. It was believed that Cleopatra sailed up the Cydnus disguised as Aphrodite and came through this gate in 41 B.C. on her way to meet Mark Antony."

Roman ruins.  This is a picture of the Roman market where they would trade fish.

Roman ruin ampitheater.  The rows of seats to the right have been restored so you can imagine what the seats looked like when it was first built.

We also went to the chasm of heaven and the pit of hell.  We walked 450 steps down to heaven and peered over a 120 meter (394 feet) pit of hell.