Turkey Part 1

Merhaba from Konya!

My dad and I spent 3 great days in Istanbul, having two enormous, long Turkish dinners: the first with my dad's Turkish friend Suha and two Italian friends of Suha's. The next night we ate with the owner of the amazing hotel we were staying at, along with the costumer relations manager.

We strolled around Istanbul, looking in the Grand Bazaar, as well as other bazaars, went to the archeological museum and the train museum, took the trams, met another one of my dad's former students (Suha is a former student). It was fun!

On Thursday we flew to Asia! to Nevsehir, in Cappadocia. We drove to Ürgüp where we stayed in a cave hotel, which is awesome. Met the one person on our tour (from New York), and had a great day of touring around. I climbed around a lot of old cave houses--thousands of years old. Unfortunately, many are unsafe because the rock wears down and is prone to collapse.
We also went to a café owned by a friend of my dad's and walked around Ürgüp.

Saturday we got up early to drive to Konya, stopping along the way at some really cool caravansarays--structures built on the sides of the roads for caravans to use to rest. Some are falling down, though the ones we visited had been restored.

Now we're in Konya, along with 2 more Americans and 3 Iranians who joined our tour. Yesterday and today were busy-- we went to see mosques, museums (archeological--woo!) and old theological schools--some really beautiful buildings with some great tile work. We saw Mevlana's tomb, which I had seen when I was here 9 years ago, and vaguely remembered.

Last night we went to see the whirling dervishes. The performance was held in a beautiful new cultural center. It started out with a concert of traditional turkish music, and then the ceremony began. There were 28 dervishes, some little kids. They whirled 3 times, with breaks in between. It was really interesting!

Now I'm back in the hotel--hotel Rumi, of course--taking a break. Tonight we don't have much planned, and then tomorrow we'll fly back to Istanbul for two days! Then on the 10th, I'll fly home. wowee.

Tchau!