Cappadocıa

We're ın Cappadocıa (Cap-uh-doke-ee-uh) and ıt's fantastıc! The rock formatıons were used by Chrıstıans as hıdıng places durıng Roman persecutıons and later they were used as monasterıes.

Geometrıc patterns on a cave wall from the 9th century (ıconoclast perıod).

Outsıde of a monastery complex.

Frescoes from a later tıme perıod. On the left you can see some of the older ıconoclast art showıng through.


More rock formatıons.

The Turkısh Language

Words I Can Pronounce ın Turkısh:

yes
no
okay
water
flour
good mornıng


Words I Fınd It Absolutely Impossıble to Pronounce ın Turkısh:

thank you


See how thıs ıs a problem? I need to say thank you far more often than I need to say flour.

No Tıme for Postıng!

Lıbrary ın Ephesus

Spıces ın Istanbul

Sunset over the Aegean Sea (our hotel ıs approxımately 6 feet from the water) ın Kuşadası

Nıce quote from Ataturk at Anzac Cove (Gallıpolı)

Whırlıng Dervıshes

All photos courtesy of AJ, because my camera ıs uncooperatıve.

Turkısh Delıghts

Who loves Turkey? I do! I do!


A Short Lıst of the Many Reasons to Love Turkey:

1. Whırlıng Dervıshes--We attended a Sufı Concert and Sema Rıtual tonıght. A-MA-zıng.

2. Turks are really nıce--We took a ferry to Marmarıs yesterday evenıng and then jumped on a nıght bus to Istanbul. Once we got ınto the cıty (cannot fınd the comma key) we realızed we had gotten off at the wrong shuttle stop but a nıce Englısh-speakıng Turkısh man took us ınto the bus statıon and explaıned where we needed to go to the Turkısh-speakıng workers and one of them took us ın her very own car to the door of our hotel and then refused to let us pay her for ıt.

3. Street markets full of gıant pıles of spıces and delıcıous lookıng foods.

4. The boys who come dancıng and sıngıng through the streets wıth theır drums early ın the mornıng to remınd people to eat before sunrıse (there was a boısterous group of them outsıde our bus as we were waıtıng to drıve onto a ferry thıs mornıng).

5. Mosques are pretty.

The Best of Greece

The view from above the theater in Delphi. The ruins below the theater (including the pillars) are the remains of the Temple of Apollo where the oracle actually did her thing. Apparently, she was high all the time and the priests interpreted her crazy-talk for the masses.

Meteora is a series of monasteries built on these amazing cliff tops. There are still 6 monasteries in operation. You can see one on top of the rock to the right.

Monastery on Meteora. The monasteries have chapels decorated floor to ceiling in Byzantine-style paintings. I like the cherubim.

Ruin from the museum at Olympia (?). Sometimes centaurs bite.

Love these guys. Also griffins. When I become a supervillain, I'm going to decorate my evil lair with them.

Snake sarcophagus.

Gyros with french fries as a topping. These people are geniuses.

Ezvones. Pretty sure that's the right spelling. These are the guards that stand vigil at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. On Sunday there's a big ceremony with a band that parades down the street in front of parliament for the changing of the guard. My grandparents lived in Greece and they had dolls of the guards. I liked the guards then. I like the guards now.

Periodically the guards march across the square.

Our hotel is just around the corner from the Acropolis. If I stand on the balcony, I can see the wall.

Delphi

We're in Delphi, having wended our way around the Peloponnese yesterday. Greece requires a great deal of imagination to appreciate. This is how it goes:

1. We visit an archaeological site.
2. We view 2,500-year-old ruins.
3. A guide explains how the site was used and what the buildings were.
4. I think to myself, "Lots of rocks."

It IS impressive and some places, like Olympia, still have pillars and arches and Agamemnon's Tomb is VERY well-preserved and striking. It's hard for me to envision the civilization that was, though.

First Cemetery of Athens

I am a great lover of cemeteries, so AJ and I tracked down (with some difficulty) First Cemetery of Athens.

I thought the carvings of individuals and couples were fantastic, especially the men with their giant mustaches.

This section of the cemetery was reserved for the burial of Catholic bishops.

Check out the knives tucked into this guy's sash.

Two of these angels flank the entrance to the cemetery. They're entirely made from metal, not glass. You can only see that they're angels when you look at the right angle with the light backing them correctly.

Athens

Edinburgh=17 degrees
Athens=34 degrees
MBC=glad she brought her water bottle to Europe

The Coordinatrix is back in North Carolina and I am in Athens with AJ. And my face is melting off. The food in Athens is an improvement over British fare. Yesterday we ate at a place where we sampled five different main dishes. A drink was included and we seriously distressed the waiter by requesting water for our drink. He came back to explain that we could have any drink at all more than once.

Because yesterday was a national holiday, our entrance to the Acropolis was free. The Greek gods smile on us.

Super Castle Party Day

We have seen many, many castles. The famous intact ones like Eilean Donan and Inverary and Cawdor and the famous castle ruins like Urquhart, but I think my favorites were the ones we saw on Super Castle Party Day. It's hard to take good pictures of castle ruins. They're much more impressive in person. We saw four castles on this particular day. AND we ate dinner on the beach with a view of the island that was the inspiration for Treasure Island.

This is the Coordinatrix at Dirleton Castle, where her people once lived. We tried to visit on Holy Island day, but it was closed and we couldn't manage to breach the fortifications (though we tried). Fortunately, SAZ was willing to come back and drive us around the next day. The most notable thing in this picture (to me) is that you can see the Coordinatrix's growing warm weather gear collection. She's purchased three jackets, a scarf, and a blanket since entering Great Britain. All solely for warmth, not as souvenirs. Dirleton Castle was my favorite.

This is Tantallon Castle, which has an amazing view out to Bass Rock. It's built right on the coast and is six stories high.

We visited 3 cemeteries on Super Castle Party Day. I can't get enough of the relief work on some of them. Last night I visited a cemetery in Edinburgh (where Adam Smith is buried) and there was a great marker that noted that the dead man had been a bassoonist and adventurer.

Don't the skulls on these look sort of alien-like?

Argh, matey.

Meta came too. EVERYBODY loves the metadog. She got loved up everywhere we went.

The Most Beautiful Place We've Seen

These are pictures from Stoer Lighthouse north of Lochinver. Our B&B owner (a Dutch man fascinated by motorcycles and Texas) sent us up here in search of whales and other sea creatures. We drove through fields of sheep and stone houses and ruins to get here and the pictures do no justice at all to the experience. We just kept turning to one another and exclaiming over how beautiful it was. The sky was so huge and the grass was so green and the light was amazing.

Holy Island

On Monday we visited Holy Island, where the Lindisfarne Gospels originated.

Holy Island can only be accessed by a 2-mile causeway during low tide.

This is a statue of St. Aidan, one of the early monks on Holy Island. SAZ says she likes to believe he's holding a holy morel in his hand. I tossed a coin into that little well in front of his statue since I missed out on my wishes at the Trevi and Swan Fountains.

Near the water we found many old boats and many of these converted boat sheds. Cool, yeah?

This is a fuzzy picture of a wooden statue that I find absolutely fascinating in the parish church on Holy Island. It's really large and quite startling to encounter when walking in the door.

Picture Catch Up

Kirsten and the Coordinatrix hiking to Culag Woods in Lochinver. It was so green.

The view from the lake at Culag Woods

I like to take pictures of Kirsten taking pictures. I have lots.

The Iron Bridge -- This was the first cast iron bridge and the valley where it was built was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.

The view from the road to our B&B in Keswick

I visited the Castlerigg Stone Circle near Keswick. When we arrived, there was some sort of ceremony with hand-holding and chanting and rock hugging going on.

Sitting on some fort ruins on Hadrian's Wall. We ate our lunch here and the entire time I thought about how funny it was that I was munching a sandwich on what was once a hugely fortified military structure. Ha ha, Romans!

I've never seen tug-of-war as an event in the highland games in the States. It's surprisingly fantastic. The participants literally dig their heels into the ground and then there's a man standing to the side for each team and his job is to turn red in the face yelling for them to pull together.

The Highlands

A little bit of magic allowed me to upload three pictures. The computer still won't upload my highland cow!

A view down from the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye. Can you see the three sheep down there?

Views from the Isle of Skye

My Favorite Part of Edinburgh Castle

The historical exhibit about the Honours, the Scottish crown jewels, is very good and takes approximately five billion years to peruse with all the crowds of people frantic to see the goods. So, I was there yesterday and a group of little Scottish boys (probably 9-years-old) came into the actual chamber with the jewels right after I did and had this conversation with the kilted guard who looked pained to be working there (imagine this all in a Scottish accent--it's better that way):

Little Boy: What's this? (bear in mind that the exhibit ABOUT the jewels and Stone of Scone that precedes the actual artifacts is VERY long)

Long-Suffering Guard: That's the Stone of Destiny.

Little Boy: Oh. (pause) Are there spirits in the castle?

Long-Suffering Guard: Don' know. None that I've seen.

Little Boy: Do you think the spirits come out at night?

Long-Suffering Guard: They could do.

Little Boy: And haunt people?

And that's when I escaped the jewel chamber, but I left deeply amused.

Quick Update

What we've been up to:

• Attended Highland Games in Portree - In response to friends' questions about how the Scots wear their kilts at the games: the competitors in the local games wear jeans
• Hiked the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye
• Had very pleasant breakfast conversation about American politics with minister from the Orkney Islands at our beautiful B&B in Duror
• Visited the MOST beautiful tiny village (I really mean it this time) in the northwest corner of Scotland. Coordinatrix eaten up by midges.
• Stayed with a friend from Indiana in St. Andrews area. She may be the coolest person I know and her food is very, very good.
• Ate delicious fish and chips by the sea
• Visited four castles, two churches, and three cemeteries on Castle Party Day with tiny dog wearing raincoat
• Scottish computers continue to refuse access to pictures on my camera

Scotland's Good Too

The Coordinatrix and I made our way to Scotland on Monday. I navigated us to Hadrian's Wall by way of Gretna Green. Look at a map. That's really astonishingly bad work. All the same, we managed to find Kirsten in Edinburgh and the three of us are in the Highlands this week.

I would have sworn that when I booked our hostel on the Isle of Skye I reserved three spots in a female dorm, but we'd only been back from dinner about half an hour before the three French guys we'd just encountered in the cafe showed up in our room and started making themselves at home.

I'll post pictures of the Highland Games in Portree and the many castles and the gorgeous scenery we've been seeing, when I get to a computer that will cooperate. We've been in the car a LOT this week. The Coordinatrix has gotten very good at driving and Kirsten's friend burned us a CD with 8 hours worth of music so we could escape the tyranny of the 5 pop songs played on a continuous loop on British radio. He put three hours worth of Camera Obscura on the CD, so I'm very pleased with our new soundtrack of Scotland. Whee!

I'm Never Coming Back

I've found my perfect place in life. We arrived in the Lake District yesterday evening and it is my favorite place. I realize that I describe everything on my trip as just. so. beautiful, but the Lake District is the realization of every idyllic vision of England a person could have. The hills are so green and they're criss-crossed with stone fences that keep in all the sheep. I love the sheep! Especially the little black ones. I'll post pictures when I can.

We're staying on a farm outside Keswick. The farmhouse was built in the 17th century and the big wooden beams still cross the ceiling in the sitting room. Our bedroom looks out onto sheep and mountains. This morning we got sent off full of hot English breakfast--eggs and bacon and sausage and tomatoes and mushrooms and toast.

We attended church in Workington today (on the west coast of England) after getting thoroughly lost and having to ask directions of the locals. Once we actually arrived, they absolutely loved us up there. They hugged us and gave us candy and begged us to stay and one man offered to take me to Gretna Green and marry me. Amid the lovefest, I had this conversation with a group of older people, which I found amusing:

Kindly British Person: Oh, you could stay here. You could come stay with us. If you stay, you can have whatever you want!

MBC: I want a sheep farm with a sheep dog and some wellies to wear.

Kindly British Person: We can arrange that!

MBC: And I need a husband [put it out there when you have the chance in Britain].

Kindly British Person: We can get you one!

MBC: Can you? Because no one else has managed that.

KBP: (turning away from me) David! Where's David? (turning back) He's 28.

MBC: Oh, that would be okay (although older would be better)

Then the Kindly British Person and another person in the group conjectured over how much David had been kissed in his past and they finally decided between them that however much he'd been kissed, he could marry me. David himself did not get to weigh in on this because he was on the other side of the room bouncing little boys on his knees.