Today I left for an over night trip to Troy, Canakkale, and Gallipoli. We started with a long drive to Canakkale. It was a five hour drive and included only a couple of stops. We knew we were getting close when we took the bus on a ferry, crossing from the European side of Turkey to the Asian side. Once across we were all so excited to be in Asia. Our first stop was to the Canakkale Archaeological Museum. It had some great artifacts including a sarcophagi case, similar to those found in the pyramids. But, let me tell you, the heat was overwhelming and since there was no a/c the air inside the museum was stagnant. It was hard to breathe, so I went through the museum and then sat outside enjoying the breeze. Our next stop was to Troy, famous because of the Iliad and the more recent movie with Brad Pitt. Unfortunately neither Homer nor Brad were there to greet me, but the city was beautiful anyways. Troy is 5000 years old and there are 6 city ruins, one on top of the other, at the city site which makes it nearly impossible to excavate there. I got some great pictures and there was even a fake Trojan Horse there!!
Next stop, our hotel. We relaxed and ate dinner, and my friend Catherine and I, along with a group of friends, decided to find the movie theater in town and catch the new Harry Potter Movie. Once we found the movie theater, which was under a grocery store, we had to mime our way through finding out if Harry Potter was in English. It wasn’t! So our next choice was Transformers. SAS people filled the theater because it was the only thing to do in the area and the only movie in English. It was fun and we ended up sitting next to the daughter of the owner of the theater, she was about 8.
The next day we headed out to the World War I battle fields and the Gallipoli Museum. The museum was full of great historical relics from the period, including bullets that were intersected and love letters. After the museum we went for a swim in the Aegean Sea. The water was warm but not very clear. We still enjoyed ourselves. From there we took the bus back to Istanbul, another 5 hour drive.
After we returned to Istanbul, my three friends and two other guys got together to go to a really nice restaurant called Reina, on the Bosphorous Straight. It was beautiful and really high end. The food wasn’t too expensive but view was priceless, we overlooked a bridge that connected the European side to the Asian side. The bridge changed colors, from purple to blue to green throughout our meal. After dinner, we went down to the club area. This is when we realized we couldn’t afford the place. The dinner was fine, but the drinks in the bar were like 15 to 30 US dollars. We quickly got the tab and a taxi and went back to the boat.
Another wonderful day!
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