Do 'ya neeeed a break from modern livin'?????

That's me on the right. Well, that's all of us on the right =D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nqWNZl3Ou4

Wow, oh wow!Turkey has been a high-class vacation... from living in Jerusalem. What a life, right?

Let me apologize up front for the lack of pictures today. Not enough time to get them all online for you today. But keep checking out my Jerusalem Photosphere album, because this is what I spend most of my picture-taking efforts doing. Each photosphere has a brief description of itself, and I try to point out a thing or two to look for. This, along with my blog, will sum up my Jerusalem adventures quite nicely.

I did actually find out why they feed us so many nice meals out here. It's because there's a bacteria that the Turks are adjusted to, but we are not. So to be careful, they feed us really nice meals everywhere we go to keep us from... well... uncomfortable potty breaks.

But at the same time, they really are just treating us very well while we're out here. The first two nights here were spent in a 3- or 4-star hotel in Istanbul. Since my first blog we also saw (in Istanbul):

• The Blue Mosque: a hop, skip and a jump away from the Hagia Sophia. Just as ridiculously huge.
• The Basilica Cistern: the largest cistern (water storage bunker) in the world. It's featured in Dan Brown's latest book, Inferno. 
• The Grand Bazaar: contains over 4000 shops. Unfortunately, I got jipped on buying Acqua di Gio cologne... they watered it down :S.
• A ferry tour of the city by water.

Well! Then came the really fun part, when we left the wondrous city of Istanbul, and started road-tripping southward along the west coast of Turkey, visiting sites like...

• Gallipoli (pivotal WWI battlefield)
• Troy. Yeah, you heard me. Troy!
• Assos, where Paul preached the Gospel. It's really high up and has some gorgeous views! I took three photospheres there alone.
• Pergamon, one of the seven cities that John writes to in Revelation. This was the best sight I've seen so far! And I've heard Ephesus tomorrow will beat it. Anyway, Pergamon has an Acropolis, which means "High City." This is absolutely correct, as we had to ride a cable car to get up to the ruins! There was a Temple of Athena, an Altar of Zeus, an ampitheatre overlooking the city valley below, a complex water-storage system, a courtyard, and a library to name some of the things we saw! I took four photospheres here, and it still may not have got the feel for how amazing this place was.

Well! Now I'm staying in a 5-star hotel resort in Izmir, which is just outside of Ephesus. Think of the book of Ephesians. This is apparently going to be one of the biggest, if not the best highlight of our Turkey trip. I've already seen a video preview of the place, and it's mind-boggling. Prepare for lots of photospheres of the Ancient Roman empire where Paul preached the Gospel!