We are... yes, Home!

Well, the trip has flown by, and I thought I should at LEAST let you guys all know that, even though according to my blog, we are still in Istanbul (funny, I wish....), we really are, in fact, home.  Or at least, my cousin's house.  But yes, we are home, meaning America... we leave from Atlanta, Georgia to drive back to NC in approximately 12-14 hours.  The culture shock of coming back has been indescribable... I catch myself saying excuse me in Turkish to the people I bump into on the street, and am taken off-guard by the fact that they actually say it back to me in English.  I find myself humming all the Turkish pop songs that got stuck in my head in the 6 weeks we were over there.  I miss the minarets and the prayer calls, and the public transport, and the incessant walking, and the cobbled streets full of so much history.  I miss the beach and the food and my Turkish friends and my new-found Turkish family (who, by the way, are wonderful and amazing people who enfolded me with so much love, it made me cry more than once).  But, I will admit, it IS nice to have a Wendy's frosty again, and NOT to have to worry about the weight limit for suitcases!  Whenever I wrote my mother, I made a habit of telling her that I missed home, but not enough to come back, just enough to bring all of my people over.  I still feel that way.  I love Turkiye so much.  One of the deepest wishes of my heart is that you all could experience it and love it.  I wish you could see and love the people and the culture and the history and the food and the music.  I wish you could sit in the covered bazaar and have Turkish chai and cake and close your eyes and listen to the sounds of the people - the clink of the glass tea cups, the footsteps echoing up to the painted roof, the voices of the shop sellers and the all the centuries-old dreams that whisper from the corners of the ancient walls.  I wish you could walk and walk and walk around Istanbul until 2 in the morning carrying shopping bags and eating street mediye dolma and knowing that you are perfectly and completely safe.  I wish you could go to a shop and see the people's faces light up as you speak a few halting Turkish words (pronouncing the vowels incorrectly, of course) and see the kindness in the seller's eyes as he pins an evil eye to your shirt (a wish for your protection from evil) and drops three liras from the price of whatever you were going to buy.  I wish you could hear a drum-beat coming from a corner of the city and follow it and find a young boy sitting there making a little money from his immense talent and practice.  I wish that you could see Turkiye, see the WORLD, the way I see it now: eternally different to your eyes.  But, seeing as you can't... I will do my absolute best over the last couple of weeks before school starts back to help you feel a fraction of the wonder and wideness and joy and loss that I feel right about now.  I will do my best to give you a taste of the sights and sounds and stories, of the people and the food and the smells, of everything that could bring each of you a fraction closer to EXISTING with Turkiye the way I did.  But if you ever have a chance... please, GO!  I want you all to see that country, MY other country, in the truest way you can.  I love you all, and I have missed you very much...
          ~Bekah

Hey everyone!

(Us with the capitol of culture sculpture)

I'm sorry!  I know this is a travesty!  We're in Kusadasi now :-)  We leave on Wednesday - two days from now - to go to Istanbul and then we have three days after that before we leave for America... it's pretty unbelievable...  I haven't been writing because we've been so busy with family and being at the beach, plus internet is hard to get (I have to walk for about 10 minutes to get to the place where we get internet - the pide place... it's amazing... we have Turkish friends there!)  At any rate, I went to Ephesus yesterday - the ruins of the  Ephesus where Paul preached the sermon in the amphitheater (wow wow wow wow wow wow wow!)  Anyway... let's see... I'll just give you guys a quick outline of everything we've done and try to fill in later, mk?
After we went to the Aya Sofya, we went to the Blue Mosque, and then the Basilica Cistern (the underground cistern... I loved that place so much...).  We ate kofte, which is basically like meatloaf meatballs at a famous place - Sultanahmet - in the best location of that shop (the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul).  We went to the Spice Bazaar briefly that night and then on the way back we saw an amazing sculpture-ish thing that was in Istanbul because they're the 2010 capitol of culture (amazing, right!?) and it had sounds that went with it, based on who was standing where inside it (basically based on sensory detection) and had speakers inside it... it was amazing!  :-)   We had so much fun with it :-)  and then we went home... I'll do more later :-)  I love you all!  Take care and write me!
        ~Bekah