The Last Day

Hello,

I realized I have not updated for awhile, so I thought I would update one last time before returning to Minnesota.

So far the group has stayed in Athens for 4 days, visiting the sites around here and enjoying the culture. Today was the last day sadly, so the guys all traveled around and saw a few of the major sites we hadn't seen yet, while also doing some major last minute shopping. The best way to close off this trip is to post pictures of Athens, Greece and what I have been doing the last couple of days.

The Parthenon

Mars Hill - where Paul spoke in Athens

The temple of Zeus - one of the largest in Greece

2004 Athens Olympic stadium with the guys

I cannot believe the trip has already come to an end. The fact that I have walked in the footsteps of Paul, seen ancient structures built by the Romans and the Greeks, and immersed myself into two different cultures has been surreal. This has been one amazing experience that I will never forget.

Now to wake up at 2 am to catch a flight... yay.

Legend & Reality

Tonight this twenty-year old is blogging from Greece. Yesterday the group spent the entire day traveling from Turkey to Greece. Sadly, I must state that so far Turkey has been better then Greece, but the full comparison will have to wait. 

I wanted to blog about my favorite sites I visited so I split them up into two categories, Legend and Reality.

Legend

Troy - Although an actual city and an actual battle, Troy VI is steeped in myth. 

The Trojan horse - rebuilt

Alex with the Trojan horse used in the movie Troy

Mt. Olympus Greece, from Greek mythology 

Mt. Olympus 

Reality 

Inscription of Emperor Trajan 

Exploring some ancient buildings 

At a Turkish carpet factory - confused as always

The Aegean Sea with the setting sun

Hellenistic walls at Sardis 

"Thinking" like Aristotle at Assos (He lived here for 5 years)

Agora at Philippi and the Roman Road

I apologize for those waiting on my blog, Greek Internet is actually more sketch than Turkish Internet, so hopefully I will be able to blog in two more days. Enjoy the cold while I bask in the 60 degree weather next to the Aegean Sea! 

The 7 Churches of Revelation

Greetings peasants,

As of right now I can happily say I am recovering (No drugs for this guy, yay! Just cough meds) and although the group has been in Turkey for 12 days in January (where it should be raining 6/12 days) it hasn't rained on us once! So I can say that the trip is still going well.

After my last blog on my free day in Smyrna, the group traveled yesterday to the Agora in Smyrna, and the cities of Sardis, Philadelphia, and Thyatira. As for today, we went to Pergamum and visited four different areas of the city.

As you biblically knowledgd peopled might have already figured out, the five places that the group visited are the cities with the churches of Revelation. Below I thought I would put pictures of the sites and the bible verse linking to the letter (I was going to type the verses themselves but my blog would be way to long). So here it is:

Map of the 7 Churches

Smyrna - Rev 2:8-11

The Agora of Smyrna 

Bottom of the Agora 

Saridis - Rev 3:1-6

Temple of Artemis

Part of the gymnasium 

Philadelphia - Rev 3:7-13

Byzantine church

Thyatira - 2:18-29

Also a Byzantine church

Pergamum - Rev 2:12-17

On top of the Acropolis looking down

The Asclepion (hospital) 

Here are the last two churches that I have already visited, but I'll post pictures of them.

Laodicea - Rev 3:14-22

Ephesus - Rev 2:1-7

Walking in the cities of the 7 churches brings the biblical text to life. Sadly, only tomorrow remains in Turkey (visiting Troy! woot woot) and than off to Greece for a week. Thanks for all the prayers and I will be blogging again in two days!

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Hey, as I'm sure you have noticed, I haven't blogged in quite a while. Look at the "bad" and "ugly" section of the blog to see why. To condense the days, I labeled them in a "good", "bad", and "ugly" category. So here we go.

Since the last post I have visited 13 cities, each with its own ancient context relating to the Greco-Roman world or having major Biblical implications. Among my favorites (like I could actually pick one) Would be Ephesus and Laodica.

Ephesus is both a city that the Ephesian letter in the New Testament is sent to and a place Paul visited in Acts. This city was the Roman capital in Asia Minor and the 4th largest Roman city.

At John the disciple's tomb in Ephesus

With Alex in the theater 

The famous Ephesus library

Laodica was also a beautiful city which can be found in scripture in Revelations 3 as one of the seven churches in Revelations.

The main street

The temple at Laodica

Several "bad" things have happened on this trip sadly...

1. The first "bad thing" is that on our way to the city of Pamukalle our bus broke its' suspension while we were in the mountains. Luckily we only had to wait about 30 mins before a small bus came and everybody packed in and drove over the hills to the city.
2. Another event I can label under this section is that of an exam. Yep, while over in Asia Minor we are being forced to still take exams. The exam also consisted of an extravagant amount of information that had to be learned prior to the exam.
3. Finally, the Internet has not been reliable so I have been unable to blog.

Now I'm sure you must be asking "You are in Turkey! What could be so ugly? You ungrateful brat!" Well, that is very true, however, the ugly part of the trip is that I got sick. Right now I am not 100% healthy, as I still carry a brutal cough that feels like death. Let me tell you, having a temperature in a foreign country does not appear on my bucket list and I hope it never does again. Don't worry tho, I am feeling a lot better right now.

Although I lumped this section in going over The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly, this trip has only been good. By no means do I mean to come off as complaining about such a great experience, instead, each set back is just a new adventure. Now 4 more days until a week in Greece!

P.S. Shout out to Alex Hintz, my Hamam friend.

Dancing in the footsteps of Paul and Barnabas

Dancing.

If you have ever seen me try to dance before it is not pretty.

To put it in perspective, I cannot dance. However, the dancing dervish can. Yesterday the group visited the Mevlana Museum which holds Mevlana, a Sufist who combined mysticism and music and created the order of the dancing dervish.

We later that day traveled to Pisidian Antioch (read Acts 13 for some background). Below is a picture of shops that were located on the main road of Antioch.

Staying the night in Antalya, today the group went to Aspendos and Perge, two preserved sites in the Roman ancient world. (Paul and Barnabas also traveled through Perge)

It blows my mind to see such sites still standing today and to think about the fact that I walked on the same roads (literally the same stones) that Paul and Barnabas walked on. It makes the Biblical text come to life.

Sorry for such a short post, after experiencing an authentic Turkish bath today (and by authentic I mean it in the "nobody spoke English and me and the other guys had no idea what we were doing) type of authentic, I am rather tired and might go to bed early.

I will be posting again in two more days, bye for now.

Don't drink the Kool Aid (or water)

Hello everybody! So yes, I am alive. The last few days have been incredibly busy, but instead of complaining about them why don't I just tell you what happened!

Starting out on January 7th, I flew from the MSP to Amsterdam airport where the group had a five hour layover. Oh, we also time traveled 7 hours ahead to January 8th. After waiting such a long time we boarded our next flight and arrived in Istanbul. I won't bore you with unnecessary bland details such as how many time I went to the bathroom or how I almost was arrested by airport security. However, the jet lag did not fair well on the group forcing most of us to head to bed around 8:30. (Just joking about the airport security).

One thing you might not know about Turkey is that you can NOT drink tap water. Even the hotels do not advise it. Basically, the Turkish government laces the tap water with some sort of formula to kill the Crocodiles in the sewers. So, any water you drink, or even use to brush your teeth, needs to come out of a water bottle.

Moving on.

Today, I was lucky enough to visit a couple of sites including:

• The Hippodrome
• Blue Mosque
• Hagi Sophie
• Archaeological Museum

I could spend hours and hours explaining each, however, I will just give you a picture and list some information about such sites. I encourage you to look up extra information as they were each fascinating.

The Hippodrome was a stadium for chariot racing and could seat 100,000 individuals (something like Ben Hur). It was the largest stadium ever built in the ancient world. The pictures above show some statues that were in the middle of the field. The Egyptian basilica dates back to between 1500-1200 B.C. (Think back to Moses).

The Sultan Ahmed or Blue Mosque, as you silly Americans know it as, was built by the 20/21 year old sultan in 1616 A.D. and no, the Blue man group had nothing to do with it.

On the land that the Hagia Sophie was built stood a Roman temple to Jupiter, which fell over and sunk into the swamp. Than, a church was built, which also fell over and sunk into the swamp. But the third time, the third time the Hagia Sophie was built. Which caught on fire, turned into a Mosque, and than fell down and sunk into the swamp. But the fourth time, the fourth time the Turkish government just turned the place into a museum. (Use wikipedia to see which is true and false).

Finally, the archaeological museum, in this picture stands part of the Jerusalem wall which was standing around when Jesus was alive.


So, there you have it kids! I hope you enjoyed catching up on my adventures. 25 days left and counting which is already going by so fast. Tomorrow is Koney (ancient Iconium) and Anitoch. Both are mentioned in the Biblical texts and also have important Islamic context.

I'm still unsure if I will be blogging every night or every other night. I might go with the later but leave a comment and tell me what you think.

As they say in Turkey, sicak tuvaletler!

The Night Before

     As I sat down to eat the scrumptious Chinese food that was before me, I had a fleeting thought that this would be the last dinner I would consume before going abroad for three weeks. That's right folks, I will be heading to Turkey and Greece tomorrow for a trip of a lifetime.

     I will start of this adventure by flying into Istanbul (look at the above map for your convenience) and continue by bus, airplane, walking, running, hiking, jumping, and other forms of travel to traverse the land. The goal of this trip is to attain a better understanding of the biblical world by following in the footsteps of Paul and visiting the seven churches of Revelation. However, I will not give you a list of the sites I am visiting due to two facts:

1. You could be a stalker and my mom told me to never give out such information.
2. The suspense will keep you returning to my blog. (Insert evil laugh)

     I cracked open the fortune cookie to see my fortune for the night. The tiny slip of paper stated, "You will be traveling and coming into a fortune." Whether that is a fortune of wealth or simply knowledge, I can certainly say that I am ready.