TURKEY

turkey was really cool. it rained the whole time we were there, but it still was great :). one of the main places we went was the city of ephesus. if you remember, paul went there to try and preach to the ephesians. the apostle john also went there, and all though no one really knows...we were told that mary went with john to ephesus (he was the one who took care of her after the death of Jesus Christ) and that ephesus is the place where she died. really cool to be there & walk down the marble streets where paul & john once walked along with so many others. everything was still so beautiful, i can't imagine how it must have looked thousands of years ago. everything was carved from marble..& like i said, even their streets were paved with marble (of course, the marble is really old and weathered now)...an archway inside the city walls...there was pieces of the walls etc all over. we couldn't believe that you could still see some of the designs...i'm sure this was once a great courtyard... a beautiful stone...there was different statues all over. most without heads or limbs :)... a lot of cool artwork...and you can guess what this room once was :). they actually had a pretty good system...there were deep trenches underneath these toilet benches and a fountain in the middle of the room...marble toilets, who would have thought? :)...the lettering was still really visible on a lot of the buildings...medusa....the gate of zeus. they made it narrow so chariots couldn't pass through. they wanted everyone to walk through... a really cool temple... a closer look at one of the statues on the front of the temple...this was once a beautiful fountain... a HUGE ampitheater...we stopped off at a place that made/sold turkish rugs. so much detail and work go into them. these next pics are for you mom! you would have loved this place... these rugs last up to 200 years becase there's so many ties per square inch...