Another day in Turkey

I finally got my camera back but had no internet last nigt in the 5 star hotel in Galilopi. So maybe I'll get some pictures up later tonight. We toured the Galilopi battlefield and cemetery yesterday and visited the museums. The entire peninsula is stunning. You can see the straights and see why the British and the Germans (and a lot of other folks) wanted to control this access point – including Jason and the Gold Fleece. We saw the wooden Trojan Horse used in the movie Troy. You only need to spend a short time here to realize how close everything is and why this area has been fought over for thousands of years. We are currently close to the border with Bulgaria (or Bulgaristan on most Turkish maps) and Greece. Amazing how close they are. No wonder they fought over this territory. We have visited numerous mosques and I am amazed at how beautiful they are. We saw one yesterday that used to be an orthodox church (many centuries ago) – the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne. You could see the old church in the bones of the mosque. In fact this mosque is one of the only ones that has the name of both Ali and Mohammed written on the walls. It represents the non-religious nature of Turkey (almost in a sense a non-partisan view of religion). Earlier in the day we went to an old healing center which used music therapy – one of the professors at a local university who plays one of the old instrument met us there and played several sample music pieces for us – including as he said, one for the urinal!!!!

Fascinating listening to it and we all felt refreshed when we left.

Guess I did not finish up Wednesday – after touring around Istanbul, going to the Grand Bazaar and the Hagia Sophia Museum, we ended the day by going to the Turkish Institute of Cooking and we cooked a wonderful Turkish meal – 5 courses. Food was wonderful. So when we have our international dinner I will be able to help out our Turkish fellow!!!

Before I end today I want to mention my colleagues on this trip. I was a little nervous about meeting them and spending 10 days traveling around Turkey with people I don't know. I am not really someone who travels with a group; much prefer one other person or alone But I have to say that these past days have been great and I have really enjoyed getting to know these folks. There are four college presidents – presidents of small colleges -- and several deans. In addition there are several others that are heads of programs. I have met and made several new friendships. They are a varied group, black, white, native American, men, women. We have all gotten along and it is fascinating to watch everyone maneuvering within the group.