Days 27 and 28

The past few day's don't compare much to Turkey. But they weren't bad, I mean I am in Jerusalem. Our first day back from Turkey we had a brunch at ten. Except Whitney and I were the only two people there, everyone else was still sleeping. Since we were up so much earlier than everyone else we decided to do our laundry before everyone else. So we through our stuff in the washer, but once we came back some lameo people had taken our laundry out before it was done washing so they could put their stuff in. Not cool. So we put our stuff into the dryers and sat by them so no one would take them out early again. And while I was sitting there watching my dryer one of the great kids here opened my dryer early and started taking it out. So when I asked what she was doing she said she needed a dryer and made me take my stuff out because it was somewhat dry. Let's just say that I was not a happy camper. The whole situation was pretty dumb. But I got over it and did pretty much nothing the rest of the day. I got caught up on blogging. And did some homework. I started to watch a movie that night, but couldn't stay awake. And that was the extent of my exciting Sunday.

Lauren, me, Rachel crushing our herbs

Monday was a field trip day! I was excited because we didn't have classes, but our field trip was from eight until four in a garden filled with plants mentioned in the bible. So I wasn't very excited to be looking at plants for eight hours. But it was actually a lot more fun than I expected. Our tour guide lady was really nice and it was all hand's on activities. We got to herd sheep and goats, pull water up from a ancient well, crush dried herbs (that we got to keep), and make pita bread. It was a lot better than I was expecting. After the garden we came back to the center had dinner. And then for some odd reason I decided to go to the Christmas Concert Choir practice. Which was somewhat of a joke. Because everyone here has been singing their entire life's and are all great and can hit every note ever invented. So I was pretty pathetic compared to them all. But it was really entertaining because Professor Huntsman was in charge of it and used to be in the Tabernacle Choir and is very eccentric. And after choir I decided to do another thing that I never do. And that would be working out. One of the security guards does a conditioning class every week. So Melissa and I went to it. Which again was a joke. It was an hour long and you run around the gym the entire time and then every once in a while we stop and do these ridiculous exercises for a few minutes and then run again. We would lay on the ground and when we got up we would leave nice sweaty body outlines on the floor. After the workout ended Melissa wanted to play soccer with a few kids, but it made the teams uneven so I had to play too. Which was also another joke. So pretty much the teams were three on three and then Melissa and I joined and it was still pretty much three on three. Because both of us were so awful. And that was the end of my adventurous day.

Turkey

Katelyn and I in Assos

Whitney, Leslie, Katelyn, Lauren, and me in Assos

Assos

Pergamum

Lauren, me, Katelyn wet in Pergamum

Pergamum

Pergamum

Ephesus

Awkward Ephesus photo

Library in Ephesus

Ephesus Theater

Danielle, AnnaLeah, Desiree, Charolette at Thyatira

Tacky Tourist Photo

Great Mosque

Silk Market

Whitney, Katelyn, Robin, Danielle, Lauren

Hagia Sophia

Day 26

Our last day in Turkey. Breakfast was just as delicious as Dinner, with peaches and pears that were perfect. We drove over to the Great Mosque and went in there for a few minutes then we went into the Silk Market. But almost all of the stores were closed because it was still so early. Our next stop was at Nicaea where we were given a lecture on the seaside about the Nicaean Council. We also stopped in the church of Hagia Sophia (not the main famous one). We drove to Yalova after and had lunch, which was one of my favorite meals. I was given a spinach veggie thing which had melted cheese over it. It was delicious. And we had a really good rice pudding for our dessert. But we had to eat really, really fast so that we could make the ferry. We ended up missing the earlier ferry but got one the one right after and then crossed the Sea of Marmara. Next we went to the large famous Hagia Sophia, which is now a museum. It was the biggest building for something like a thousand years, it is really big compared to buildings today. There was about half an hour of confusion afterwards where no one knew what was going on. Which was a bit frustrating. But eventually we were allowed fourty minutes into a smaller Bazaar. Where Melissa and I got a few more knick-knacks. We then went over to our last dinner. Which was gross for everone but Taylore (the other vegetarian) and I. I was given three plates of food, one was a pizza thing and the other two were sizzling veggies. Our tour guides and bus drivers gave us little farewell speeches. We were then herded quickly back to our buses and to the airport. Security was easy to get through. We had some spare time so we ate one last magnum bar. And then got on our midnight plane ride. I was pretty much asleep the entire two hours. And then we were back in Israel. We were all exhausted but still had to go through customs and get our luggage. Only one of our boys got held up in customs because he had a stamp from Pakistan in his passport. But he ended up making in onto the bus ride back to the center. We all slept for the 45 minutes ride. And then stumbled to our rooms and into bed. I am so happy to be back.

Day 25

This morning we went to Hierapolis. And there we got to walk on the Pamukkale which is a bunch of hardened calcium carbonate where springs run over them. I didn’t take my camera because I didn’t want it to get wet, so I’ll have to try and steal some photos from someone else for this day too. We just rolled up our pants and took off our shoes to walk around, because the water wasn’t deep. But it was pretty funny because a few tacky tourists were in full out speedo’s and bikinis doing their awkward tourist poses. We walked over to the theater after, which is one of the most well-preserved theaters from ancient times. We then walked over to a necropolis, which is a huge cemetery and looked around there for a bit. Then we were back on the bus, we stoped for about five minutes at Thyatira, ruins of a Byzantine church, but then were on the bus again to our last hotel. The best the last of all the game. This hotel was easily the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in my whole life. It was uber fancy. We all got to our rooms then met in the basement and had a quick sacrament meeting. Then we went up to dinner. And the food was the best, they had ton’s of desserts, besides the yucky honey stuff, and fruit. It was so yummy. We’ve been eating most of the fruit and veggies at the restaurants the whole week, even though we were advised not too. But the places we eat are so nice and they care about their reputation. After dinner we explored the hotel for a while, they kept the pool open an extra hour for us. It was down in their spa, which was free. So Melissa, Allison, and I ended up going into the Sauna instead of the loud pool. It was fun, a couple of the more interesting boys came in. And apparently one of them was in the CIA and the other one knows like all of church leaders personally and has met the US presidents. It was an odd conversation, they are apparently very accomplished. After that I went up to my comfy room and was out for the night.

Day 24

I sat with Matty on the bus today. We drove to Ephesus. Which were the biggest ruins that we have been to so far. And not only were the ruins exciting but there happened to be a bit of a famous couple there as well. It was Tinley and Kipton from the Bachelor. They were on different seasons, but they were both on the Bachelor Pad as well. Lauren and I spotted them right when we got there and stalked them the entire time, our teachers kept trying to herd us back because we kept wondering off to find them. Let’s just say that we stalked them so well that we ended up asking if we could get a picture with them. But by this time a bunch of other girls in our group had seen them too so they all got in the photo. And sadly the picture was not taken on my camera, so I’ll have to hunt it down and post it. My headset died while I was there so I pretty much didn’t hear anything that Fathi was telling us. But there was a really big library and theater. We sang in the theater and got applause. There was also this Asian man who sang opera and he was pretty entertaining. After that we went to lunch and then to Miletus. There were a bunch of sad flee ridden dogs there (there are way more stray dogs here than cats). The entire site was kind of gross because it floods every year and then dries up and leaves grossness all over. And we were pretty much hiking through the bushes the entire time. We had a really long bus ride after that and watched Robin Hood until we got to our Hotel. But by this point we were all food deprived again, because we had lunch at 12 and dinner at 8. This hotel was the nicest yet, we had a good dinner and then we all hurried out to the hot springs. It didn’t smell like the usual gross hot springs and we kept switching into the cold swimming pool. But I ended up going to bed early. Because I was tired and one of the boy’s in my group was being creepy and obnoxious and I didn’t want to be around him. Although this hotel was the nicest so far, the rooms were the worst. The lobby was very deceiving. We didn’t even have any towels in my room or shampoo. 

Day 23

Today AnnaLeah was my bus buddy. It was a long day on the bus, again. I got a window seat though so it was nice to lean on. Our first stop was at Assos, where we had to walk uphill through a little village to get to it. Where all the little old village ladies were trying to sell things like knitted socks. Aristotle lived here and also the apostle Paul passed through here at the end of his third mission. We took some fun pictures. Then we were on the bus again for a few hours. We then arrived at Pergamum, which is one of the seven churches of Asia and is a Hellenistic site. We got to ride a gondola up the mountain to it. Once we got to the top it started raining a little bit, but that eventually turned into a down pour/wind storm. At one point we were all huddled into a group against a wall trying to stay dry and warm. We all got soaked and eventually the doctor forced us to head down because the lightening was really close. It was really fun, while we were up there. My bus actually came down earlier than the other bus, so we sat in the bus and watched the other kids come running down. It was pretty funny because they were up there a bit longer and had got so much more wet than us. They all had to change their clothes. We drove to our hotel after that. We all checked into our rooms and then it seemed that every one went out onto their decks and we were all talking to each other from there. After our buffet dinner Allison, Melissa, and I convinced Michael-Sean to go out with us. We walked over to this supposed castle, which happened to just be a statue of a pigeon. Then we walked around and looked through some stores. And met up with another group of kids at a karaoke bar. It was a tough small crowd of old people, a bunch of our group got up and sang a few songs. And we were all up there dancing with them. We ended up having to run back to the hotel to get in before curfew. Because when we leave the hotel we have a sheet we have to sign saying we left and they check it right at 10:30. Matty and Izak were late and only in a group of two, so they pretty much got grounded. They weren’t allowed to leave the hotel for the next two nights. And that was the excitement of that night.

Day 21

We have to get up early every morning get to breakfast, which consists of cereal with warm milk and bread, and get onto the buses on time. Our tour guides name is Fatih, Fah-tee. He is really interesting. He is way better than Huntsman bus guide, but we feel like he just makes up most things. He is super random too, he will get on the mic and say things like “all blonds kill brunettes” or “hello hobbits or aliens.” But he is really nice and makes sure that I get vegetarian things at most of our meals. We toured the Blue Mosque and the former sultan’s Palace. We were there for a really long time. We were all dragging by two, because we hadn’t had lunch and breakfast had been at six. But before we went to lunch we went to the Basilica Cistern, I wasn’t very happy because I was soo hungry. But the Cistern ended up being my favorite part of the day, it was pretty amazing. It was huge and was held up by columns that had been collected from all over the world. We finally got lunch after that, then we got to go to the Grand Baazar. It is something like sixty streets wide with four thousand shops. We were only allowed 45 minutes. So Melissa and I went though it really fast and bought a few things. We find the rule of three thing quite irritating at times, but we were always near other groups of kids. After our mad shopping we went on a cruise around the Bosphorus, almost to the Black Sea. And then to Dinner on the water. Dinner was an adventure because the appetizers consisted of fish eggs and anchovies. And the main meal was a complete fish. I was given my mushed veggies and rice luckily. We are allowed out until 10:30 every night and there is a big night life around our Cartoon hotel. We walked down a street of stores, but our group was too big and everyone wanted to do something different. And each group of girls is required to have boys. So Melissa and I just walked around and then met up with Andrew, Jeff, Courtney and Asia and went to a cute little desserts café. It had the best desserts, a whole menu to choose from. Melissa and I got an ice cream Sunday with banana ice cream, nuts, carmel, wafers and whip cream. We also shared a piece of cake. It was mainly chocolate cake with some white batter, macadamia nuts, almonds, chocolate ganache, and even better there was an éclair baked into it. It was soo delicious. Then back to the hotel, I talked with Melissa and Nick for a while then went to bed.

Day 22

Again an early bus ride, this time we had to load our suitcases. Danielle, one of the sisters, sat next to me the entire day. We spent two hours on the bus, had a bread, then drove for two more hours. Then we got on a ferry, drove some more and eventually got to Troy. A very, very large majority of this trip was spent on the bus. There was a bit wooden horse at troy that we all climbed into and took pictures with then we walked around the ruins and Fathi told us about the site. Melissa and I went over to the gift shop at the end and were looking around and realized that everyone was gone. We had to run to the buses, they were waiting for us and we were the last people on. We then were on the bus again and drove to our ‘otel’ which was on the beach. I’ll mention here that every few hours we take a quick pit stop, where a majority of us get magnum popsicles nearly every single time. I think I ate one every single day on the trip. This hotel was nice there was a pool. From this point on most of our meals were buffets and not the multiple course meals. We hung out on the pier for a while and took pictures and walked on the beach. Most of the kids swam in the pool, because we weren’t allowed to swim in the ocean-they couldn’t give us a reason for this one. After dinner there were a few girl singing and dancing (interpretative) at the end of the pier it was really fun to watch, they were both really great. Fathi let us have a bon fire and dance party on the beach. He got the hotel to set up a huge sound system. Fathi pretty much hung out with our group during all of the free time, swimming with us, buying us treats. It was a bit creepy but he was really nice. Our dance party was a blast, Lauren and I danced the entire time and would take water breaks and run into the ocean to cool off. But there was this one kid in our group that was following us the entire dance so we were moving around a lot to avoid him. After a few hours we went to bed. For a few nights in a row I have woken up in the middle of the night because my calf’s have had major charley horses. It’s probably because I wasn’t drinking enough water throughout the day.

Day 20

This morning we had a while to finish packing and get ready for the trip. So once we were all ready we headed to the upper entrance and loaded the buses and headed out for Tel Aviv. Once we got to the airport they handed out our passports, they don’t trust us to have them, and we went through the first security checkpoint just to get in the doors. They were just looking at passports and asking questions like if you packed your own suitcase. But when my turn was up they asked me a bunch of questions, I was completely racially profiled. I was asked where my last name came from, parents names, siblings names, grandparents names, just a bunch of questions until the girl was convinced that I was actually an American and not a terrorist. It was pretty entertaining. We had got to the airport so early that we had a few hours of waiting for the plane to take off. But once on the plane it was really quick, the flight was only about two hours and they served a full meal. So we took off, ate, then landed. We all made it through customs easily and headed to our tour buses. Well a couple kids went missing but they showed up eventually. We then drove about an hour to our hotel. The Cartoon Hotel. I had originally assumed that Cartoon was some kind of fancy French word or something. But no it literally meant cartoon, like the Mickey mouse characters. Because that was what the theme of the entire hotel. We were given our room keys and told to put our stuff away then come back down and meet to walk over to dinner. Well it took me twenty minutes to even find my room, the entire hotel is a maze. But twenty flights of stairs later I finally found it. Because silly me I thought room 418 would be on the fourth floor. I actually had to go up to the first floor then walk through it into another wing with another set of stairs then go up from there. It was a bit ridiculous. And they have all automatic lights that turn on when you walk by so it was creepy walking around in the dark and having cartoon characters staring at me. My roommate, Katharine and I, went down to meet the group. But there were only a few people left because everyone had already left. So one of the professors had to come back and walk us to the restaurant because no one knew now to get there. We eat at the nices places in Turkey, because they are very concerned about us getting sick. But even then we still have to bring our own water bottles and not eat the fruit or vegetables. We are served a four course meal. Salad, soup, meatballs and rice, then honey desserts. This meal was pretty gross, but luckily at every meal we get baskets of really soft bread! After the dinner we went back to the hotel, Katherine and I talked for a while before going to bed. Which was really fun because I have never really talked to her.

Turkey

Blue Mosque

Brielle and I

Katelyn and I

Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque

Sultans Palace

Danielle, me, Charlotte

Whitney and I

Cistern

Cistern

Katherine and I in the Cistern

Melissa and I on the cruise

Andy, Whitney, Lauren, Katelyn, Leslie, Kate, Elise, and April after the Cruise

Fish Dinner. Yuck.

Troy

Melissa, Me, Lizzy in Troy

Andrew, Jeff, Melissa and I in Troy

Lauren, Whitney, Melissa and me

I forgot to take pictures of our hotels, this is the one on the beach where we had our bonfire

Sarah, Jessica, Me, Lauren, Whitney on the pier

Melissa and I

Charlotte, me, Whitney, Danielle, Lauren, Katelyn in Assos