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.