Friday Oct 21:   Cecilia Morrissey ceciliabeau@hotmail.com
Last day of touring in the Footsteps of St. Paul

Today, at our hotel in Yesilyurt the morning was quiet.  Our breakfast turned out to be as splendid as last night’s dinner.  Sitting in the lounge which overlooks the green hills it was easy to dream of returning to this lovely place.  Today we will visit Troy, take a ferry across to the European side and return to Istanbul.  We were on the bus for about ½ hour when Meli stopped at a large modern looking building.  She said that she needed to do some business for a few moments.  Soon the group discovered that this was a carpet co-op headquarters, and we were off the bus and into the building in a flash!  What a wonderful discovery.  This place is the headquarters for the Dobag carpet project.  The focus is to revive the old craft of carpet making by using natural dyes and weaving carpets in the villages.  We were treated to a display of beautiful carpets.  Evidently, the cooperative is actively seeking representation in the United States and Meli is helping them with this effort.  Several of our group bought carpets.  In fact, once we were back on the bus, Meli took a “carpet count” and we learned that our group of 12 purchased 22 carpets during the tour.  When we arrived at Troy we made our way past the huge wooden horse which gave a definite tourist flavor to the site entrance.  However, once in the site with Meli’s explanation of the various levels of Troy using the illustrations provide at the site we were soon immersed in the story of Troy’s excavation at the hands of Max Schleiman.  This self styled archeologist was a brutal excavator and in his quest for treasure actually destroyed huge areas of the ancient cities called Troy.  During the remainder of the trip we were treated to Meli’s recipe for Turkish coffee: “It is very easy,” and we sang songs and played silly games to pass the time.  As we neared Gallipoli Meli called our attention to the plaque on the hillside which states:  “Stop passenger and think, this is the place where one era in history stopped and another one began.”  It is of course referring to the events of March 18, 1915, the decisive battle at Gallipoli when the Turks prevailed over the ANSAC forces.  Meli gave us the history of the founding of modern Turkey, and explained to us the difficulties of changing 700 years of Ottoman history. Then, as we drove into Istanbul with its traffic and the lights of the ships on the Bosporus, we were very quiet, each alone with his and her thoughts of this special trip in the Footsteps of St. Paul.

Second Poem by Beau

: the words to the game, “My aunt went to Turkey and she brought back to me. . .”

Apple tea, blue pashmina shawl, ceramic bowl, Doric column, elephant bracelet, flask of water, Grecian urn, hat to keep the sun off, ionic column, jar of olive past, kilim, lamb kebab, many, many, many carpets, olive oil, pistachios, queen of the Amazons, rice, stash of chocolate, two inch high evil eye, uncle Hussein to carry everything, vine of grapes, WC, xenophobia no more, yummy yogurt, Zillah’s photos.