İznik

Yesterday we took a day trip to Iznik. We had wanted to get a shuttle bus to take us to Bursa (the city next to Iznik), which would have been relatively cheap and really convenient, but the driver cancelled on us last minute. So Tyler figured out a way for us to get to Iznik by public transportation. Tyler is great. He's really smart, knows way more Turkish than most of us, and has spent more time in Turkey so he knows his way around a lot better. I'm kind of worried that we take advantage of his expertise sometimes :P It ended up taking us about five hours to get to Iznik, but it was a good to get more familiar with the public transportation system, and with friends I didn't mind, especially since I didn't have much homework hanging over my head. This was our route:

1. Dolmuş (minibus) to Sariyer
2. Bus to the metro
3. Metro to the tram
4. Tram to the ferry
5. Ferry across the Bosphorus
6. Dolmuş to Iznik

The way back was similar. But it was totally worth it. Iznik is beautiful and really different from Istanbul or Edirne. It's the site of the First Council of Nicea! Here's the church where the Council took place (no big deal):

After seeing the church, we walked to the lake. Iznik is famous for this lake, which is huge. It was soooo beautiful!!!! I can't even describe and the pictures definitely don't do it justice. I'm not actually putting my better pictures of the lake up because I'm not sure what the ownership rules are for blogspot and I don't know what I might want to use the pics for later. Here's where we had some delicious tea and "tost" (with cheese and meat that tasted like tandoori lol) on the lakeside:

Then we spent a while just wandering around on the town's extensive ruins: walls, gates, and an impressive amphitheater. It's so amazing to see these things that were built SOOO long ago! I can't wrap my mind around their age, or the fact that they were being used at one point and parts still last. Nathan was climbing a particularly precarious part of the amphitheater and Tyler was getting nervous, saying that those walls were so old you couldn't trust them. Nathan argued that if they lasted this long they were surely trustworthy :D We could get gorgeous views from way up high on the walls. The air there was a lot cleaner than in Istanbul and it was a beautiful day. Here's part of the wall seen from another part of it:

Here's the amphitheater:

The feel of the city was really different in general, too. Everything was much smaller scale and much more rural. It seemed like every house had a good-sized vegetable garden. It looked like a lot of houses were burning trash as well. There was also a group of people that kept catching and releasing pigeons and doves, maybe to train them? Throughout the day there was a really loud, really long procession of cars driving throughout the town celebrating a wedding. I got a video of it but I can't figure out how to put it up :(

On our way to the museum I wanted to buy one of the delicious-looking loaves of bread that were displayed along the streets to have at home over the next few days. In my plan to have it last I didn't realize what I was up against: at about 5 in the afternoon it was fresh. Piping hot. It was SO GOOD. Between all of us we finished a huge loaf before we got home. No regrets :D.

We didn't have much time at the museum, but it was small and we were tired anyway. There were some really nice artifacts, including flatware, sculptures, and gorgeous coins from various eras. This one has the signature of the Ottoman Sultan:

We were all exhausted by the time we got home, but made a valiant effort to get some homework done before bed. And now we're beginning our fourth week in Istanbul!