Selçuk... Again

And so we returned to Selçuk early in the morning and arranged our accomodation at the Vardar Pension which a friend of ours had recommended and wasted the rest of the day going out for Pide three times and hunting down a tiny ice cream stall and procedding to sit there for the next hour ordering cone after cone.
Somehow during the midst of all that we squeezed in a visit to St.John's church which, besides being larger and rather more interesting than İ had expected contained a litter o fpuppies hidden under some of the ruins who procedded to dig in th deirt and uncover a section of mosaic. usrely this peice had already been found and then simply covered by a thin layer of dirt but the process was both adorable and astonishing.
The next day we left early in the morning intending to tour Priene and Miletus but made it only to Priene (Only being somewhat misused as the process took several hours and involved three seperate buses). Priene however more tnah made up for this fault of ours as its position on the slope of a mountain gave each of the terraces that its buildings were constructed on stunning vistas of the Meander valley below. After leaving and ahving taken the obligatory photograph with the "Beware of the Bees" sign (there were quite a few bees) we took another three buses back to our hostel and then went out again for more Pide and icecream before bed.
i was somewhat out of it the next day, having caught some heat exhaustion in Prine, but we still lmanaged to make it to the town of Bergama where we checked in to the Gobi Pension after havşng been lost for only a short time and then headed out to see the sights which we went to in quick seccesion by means of a booked taxi the Acropolis and the Aesclepion were both amazing and the Red Basilica was... Red and not much else as it took us five Lira each to learn.
The next day we made our way to İstnabul by bus and though we failed to get on a Starliner (my preferred model of bus) the ride was nevertheless made interesting by our incredibly friendly bus attendant Onur and his friend DJ Ahmed both of whom knew a smattering of English and made attempts at converstaion which were thoroughly enjoyable if not very cultured or broad of topic.
And that i neffect brings us to the present as we have checked back into the Old City Hostel where the staff still recognize us and some people who checked in at the same time as us are still here (including one weird nocturnal gu ywho just plays World of Warcraft at night) and though we have been in istanbul all of today the only thing we have really done is buy gifts for people. And so closes the Turkey trip as we will be catching the airport shuttle at some ungodly hour of night tomorrow and then embarking on the imposingly long trip home where i hope to be greeted with maple syrup and bacon and all of those other thisgn that i have missed while travelling.

A Short Stop in Denizli

It had been our plan to base ourselves from Denizlı and see the sights around but upon arriving at the Otogar and finding that our otherwise allknowing book had no suggestions for accomodation we immediatly scrapped that plan and found a Dolmus to Pammukale the tourist centre of the region and on our way there found the promoter from a hostel whose invitation we readily accepted and so we set off on our rapid change of plan and arrived at the Four Seasons in Pammukale (No it was not an actual Four Seasons) here while David was on the computer the owner boıught me a beer and thus clinched our bookings of two tours through him Aphrodisias the next day and Pammukale itself the day after. This was to prove my worst decision of the trip.
The next day we woke early and got the surprisingly long bus to Aphrodisias which was my ideal tour namely a bus that takes you there and then later, picks you up again. This was perhaps my favorite city that we had been to, the museum held an amzimg collection of statuary, all of the buildings were well preserved and beautiful and there were almost no people about, maybe fifty spread across the whole site. Thisallowed us to explore many of the areas almost on our own and we took advantage of this dawdling in the theatre and other areas. Near the end of our "tour" we hit the Stadium and ran a foot race which a kindly French man started for us and then had a game of Cribbage on the seats, David won both but he still spilled Fanta on the Lıbrary of Celsus.
We then headed to the cafe for some drinks mazed at how fast we were moving as it was almost the same time as when we left the Stadium, I then restarted my watch and we caught the nect tractor up to the bus stop and headed back into town for a relaxing day of reading and computering.
So far so good but the next tour went to hell right away, we were to be it's only members so all we got from it was some Turkish guy who rambled on in brokm Emglish as we nodded and did our best to inore him the pools at pammukale, formed from Calcium laden water, were cool and Heirepolis was interesting but all in all the day was bad as we were lead about by our poor guide and then we went for lunch.
I had been hoping that lunch would save the day as it was a buffet and neither David nor I had had any thing but bread and water for the past three days but the food was utter crap spongy potatoes and poor cuts of meat served with a heap of half decent rice. The restaurant was covered in Christmas decorations and despite our chort stay played the same terrible spanish song no less than four times accompanied by several variations of the chicken dance. For desert you were given a choice of brown goo, light brown goo, white goo, or red goo (I choose white goo and regretted it) After this the tour was mercifully short and we were soon back at our hotel consoling ourselves with Fanta. We left the hotel the next day and headed West for Selcuk.

Antalya

Antalya is a city of interesting contrast one has only to walk through Hadrian's Gate to enter the ancient secor of Kaleici or step back through it to return to a bustling and modern commercial centre. We came here and immediatly set out to wander the narrow streets of the area to be rewarded with a resaurant overlooking the old Roman harbour and near some tower or other it was on the way back to the hotel that I made my great error, deciding to book a tour to see Perge Side and Aspendos. Now Aspendos I could care less about but perge and Side are among my favorite cities and having woken up earlt and gotten on the bus with the four people we would share our tour with as well as the guide I was immediatly disappointed as the guide began a longwinded and disjointed account of the area's history that showed at best a cursory knowledge of the matter he was supposed to guide us through.
My disappointment was revisited and redoubled when we spent longer getting to Side then we spent in Side, after a brief examination of the Temple of Apollo and adjacent Byzantine bathes we began walking back to the Theatre we had passed earlier and were promised a return visit to, this return visit proved to be fifteen minutes of looking at the outside Theatre wall while we waited for the bus to arrive, I left the group nd got a quick glimpse of more of the theatre and some of the agora but still came away very disappointed.
Aspendos was a repeat of these events we saw the amazing theatre and then turned back to the entrance and ledt the site abandonning the sign post pointing p the hill and pointing to an Agora a Nymphaeum an Aqueduct and other things to see but we turned and left and drove over to a somewhat intact section of the Aqueduct before once mor leaving the site with so much more to see.
by this time I was in a very sour mood I had booked the tour not to be shown around but for the convenience of the bus from one site to another and was not happy with how it had turned out. my mood however was lifted when we reached Perge, our guides already cursory knowledge left off here and I took over the tour group for a time before we went off our own ways and spent a decent amount of time exploring this fine site.
We spent that night in thecompany of some friends we had met on the cruise and then left the next day, after having visited the Archaeology Museum (a great visit with fine statuary) before catching a bus in the evening for Denizli.

The Blue Cruise

Our boat was a gulet, a traditional small wooden boat, and it left the port at Fethiye at noon carrying eight passengers and three crew and was due to pick up four more passengers that afternoon. David and I had a cabin with one double bed but as we both slpt up on deck the first night and he continued to do so on subesquent nights this was not a problem.
The first day was an introduction to the lifestyle to which we would become accustomed over the next four days, larfe meals served regularily three times a day, regular stops for sightseeimg and swimming during the day and cardgames and beers at night. We were aboard with six Italians (all of whom spoke English) and four Australians (Some of whose English could be understood, on occasion).
The days all blur togather during this section of the trip but hıghlights include snırkeling among ancient gbuilding foundations at St.Nicholas Island and elsewhere exploring random Byzantine ruins and walking around several cities into which we had come for refueling and supplies. The nights too blend into one but here the highlights were large quantities of Efes consumed and nighttıme swims in the Mediterranian during which we saw any number of shooting stars moored as we were to a rock in a natural harbour and with only the lights on the boat to hamper our stargazing.
On the last night we held the BBQ and party night during which I got to see the captain (A fine Turkish man of some fifty years with an impressive gut and a more impressive moustache) dance and won a game of musical chairs despite stiff competition. After some consolation drinks for the loers of the game we headed to the Pirates Den, a rather rundown bar where each of us proceeded alternatly drink ourelves into oblivion and tear up the dance floor with synchronized moves, sandals were lost cuts were recieved and the contents of at least one person's stomach were sent over the side of the boat.
All too soon we docked in a small city and boarded a bus with our new aquantainces to the hıppıe commune come tourist centre Olympos where we checked in (A process of few words and several shrugs) into the most layed back hostel any of us had ever seen. No passport information was taken, no questions asked we were simply sent up to our clean and comfortably airconditioned room witht the hope that when we checked out we would pay some amount of money if we felt like it. This place has been the best deal that we have found in all of our travels clean comfortable AC breakfast and dinner included all for the low price of 25 a head it's slogan was come for a night stay for a week and god damn if I was not tempted.
In the end we stayed only two nights on the first we took a bus up to look at the Chımera flames, naturally occuring flmaes where Bellophpn is said to have imprisoned the Chimera. On the second day we went to the beach and looked through the ruins of ancient Olympos (one of my favorite cities yet, due to the lack of people and overgrown nature of the ruins) that night we enjoyed some Jenga along with a nargile (water pipe) and after another, more in depth, examination of the ruins the next day caught a bus to Antalya.

The Traveler's Diet

I have always been somewhat bad at feeding myself. During summers in hıghschool it was not at all uncommon for me to eat only one meal a day or no real meals at all and living on my own this practice has transferred over. It is only natural therefore that while travelling I have not eaten as much or as well as I should as mentioned in the previous post bread is the standard fare at most meals, if you want to call them such, but we do not subsist purely on bread which at around 50 kurush is very affordable but also on watermelon which costs some 3 lira and lasts two or three days. The added benefit of the watermelon is that it is a great deal of fun to eat and even more so to drink the juices after it has been finished.
As we are travelling it would be a shame to go without trying Turkish food and I have in abundance while I was working I eat a full three meaks a day of traditional Turkish food and quite enjoyed it save for the yoghurt soup which I found too salty. Since then David and I have been to many restaurants from cheap places to pick up a pide or dnair to upmarket Ottoman restautants where the date of the recipie you are trying is listed on the menu next to the disconcertingly hıgh (In the light of most of our meals) price, mine was from the 15th Century.
Though bread does provide a good snack others are called for from time to time and in these times David and I turn to Rondo cookıes which cost under 1 Lira for a pack and form a distressingly large part of our dıet. And while speaking of such items I would be remiss not to include icecream on this list as we seem to be buying it more and more in the past week much to our tasebud's pleasure and our wallet's distress.
And then of course there is the food which I have been given, the Turks are nothing if not friendly and I have had the pleasure to try fruits and vegetables picked straight from their gardens and offered to me with a charmingly misalinged smile and some mumbled words of Turkish. Among these fall the most delicious raspberries ı have ever eaten and some kind of white peach or perhaps plum? peppers bread cheese parsley dates plums peaches sour cherry juice and simit (a round bagel like thing) round off the lıst. These were given to me in many different sıtuations sometimes sitting in the farmers backyard sipping tea other times approached while working and sometimes completely randomly like the old lady who, noticing that I had not gotten off the bus at the rest stop bought me a simit and some sour cherry juice or the old man who, giving me a ride in his tractor, offered me some dates.

To Err is Inevetable

As is often the case when one is writing from a less than fresh memory I made a mistake in the chronicalling of my travels in my previous post. After leaving Izmir I did not as I had previously said head South to fethiye but rather someways less South to Selcuk.
Due to the fact that we had already spent most of the day whiling away our time in Chios and Cesme resprectivly we once again arrived in the small and pleasent town of Selcuk some hours after the sun had fallen. It was in this darkness that we made our way from the otogar along the quiet but not yet deserted streets to the hostel a friend of ours had recommended some time before in Istanbul.
We walked past one Pension to be propositioned by its doorman and rather gruffly turned him down which made it rather embaressing to return to his door some five minutes later having pounded upon the door of out recommended pension and having it's owner wearily stick his head out the door to infrom us that he was full up that night. So we returned to Dreams Pension who's owner as it turned out had a great deal of family in canada and a comfortable roomk to offer us at a reasonable price, especially reasonable considering how soon before we had turned down his offer of accomadation with hardly a second glance.
Upon waking the next day after washing off the dust of travel we found our way to a small park walled off on one side by the impressive remnants of a Byzsantine aqueduct here we bought our customary meal, two loaves of bread for 50 kurush a peice. Polishing these off there in the park we then headed off to see Ephesus that most famous of Turkish archaeological sites. After some confusion near the beginning we soon completed the walk up a small rural road occasionally passed by the occasional monstrous tour bus off to dısgorge it's small trickle of the flood which would surge through Ephesus that day as it did every day.
Ephesus itself was impressive the theatre and the Library of Celsus especially so but I can honestly say that other sities deserve some of the attention that it receices' not that I am displeased to have these sites almost to myself of course. we amused ourselves for some time by posing in various positions in front tof the nearly continously photographed library, I am sure that if one were to look at those photos in a flipbook we would be moving quite smoothly.
on our walk back to town we planned to stop and look at the famous temple of Artemis which had once been a wonder of the world but when a Turkish farmer stopped and offered us and then later two Japanese tourists a ride in the trailer of his tractor along with his fruits we quickly abandoned our plan to look at the one remaining coloum and happily bounced about in the back of his tractor into town where we thanked him profusly, shook hands and were off.
In this case we were off to the market to buy a watermelon a task we accomplished with minimal broken Turkish and a great deal of gesticulating. we took our newest purchase to the park we had eaten our bread in and with my pocket knife carved up the watermelon as best we could before devouring it wişth a hungar I have found unıque to the time after exploring an ancient city. The watermelon, though warm, was rıpe and delicious and though my attempt to cut a funnel and drink from the now hollowed out and juice-filled watermelon ended in a sticky disastor the day as a whole was entirley satisfying.
And thus it was on the next day not the previous that we boarded our bus to Fethiye and there that we boarded our boat the topic of my next post... probable topic anyways.

The Aegean Coast

Right so it has been some time since i have last updated this blog but with my limited access to a computer that can hardly be helped. As so much has happened since my last update i have decided to split my trip into relevent sections the first of which is the Aegean Coast.
Having met in Istanbul and having spent some time there David and I set off South along the coast of the Aegean Sea we took the train to the Istanbul bus station and found a chaotic mess the likes off which i had not seen before or since. It was a vast warren of industrial archıtecture plastered with the signs and advertisments of half a hundred bus companies we had decided to first travel to ıznik a small town some ways South and East of Istanbul itself. So we set out asking at each ticket office that we passed if they had any buses to Iznik only to find that there were very few buses going there and those that were would not leave for another five or so hours. Facing this adversity we promptly gave up on Iznik and set our hopes on Burgama, further South, these hopes too were quyickly dashed with shaken heads and broken Turkish.
We had by then been in the sun for some time and were quite ready to get out of the heşş that is the Istanbul bus station and so we again compromised our plans and turned our prow even further South to the major cıty of Izmir to which we quickly caught a bus and were on our way.
All of this fanagling however, coupled with an excrutıatıngly slow ferry ride across the Bosphorous, lead us to arrive in Izmir, city of some four million at three AM. With surprisıngly little diffaculty however we managed to catch a shuttle into the heart of the cşty and arrange accomodations which we found with the help of an old Turkish man who was up and about at that hour for a reason far beyond my comprehension.
That is how we ended up at the Hotel Imperial, a flamboyant name for such a dingy place but the price was low and it was, after all, three in the morning. we stayed at this hotel for two nights. On the first of our days in Izmir we headed back to the Otogar at which we had so recently arrived and caught a bus some ways North and east to the diminutıve twon of Sart a sorry remant of the once great city of Sardis where gold flakes left from Midas's bath in the river were collected with woll seives. For that matter a sorry remnant is all that remains of the ruins of Sardis we saw all of six other tourists throughout the day examining the bathes and fortification walls that still stand there and wandered for some time along a rural backroad accompanied by a group of rather unsavoury children constantly asking us for money and showing us what I must assume were self inflicted roomes along each of their fore arms.
On the second day in Izmir we headed West to Cesme a resort town cum port from which I was to travel to Greece in order to renew my Turkish Vısa upon reentrance. I spent an enjoyable if dull day on Chios loıtering in the Museum and at a harbour front cafe before boarding the ferry back into Turkey. The most interesting thing that happened that day was noticing the utter lack of security at the Turkish customs. Oh there was a medical detector and bag scanner but I walked around them without noticing and went back through them of my own violition and upon beeping was simply waved through onto the other side. I was not searched at all on my way back in.
Worn out from our travels and disappointed with the only site we had visited David and I turned South once more leaving several sites for later and heading to the tourist Mecca of Fethiye where we spent a day enjoying the turqouise waters of the Bşue Lagoon (And gettıng hidieously sun-burnt, I am still peeling) and then taking a day trip to Saklikent Canyon a hike which had a sign warning us to bring submursible shows as we would "occasionaly walking through water or mud" I of course flouted such a wewakly worded statement and found to my distress that there was no path it was merely a hike through a river. This did offer spectacular veiws and climbing up small waterfalls was good fun but having to do so in bare feet was less so, david opted to wear his shoes underwater and has since decided to through them out due to mold.
After that less than spectacular but still decent adventure we boarded our Gulet (small wooden boat) for a four day cruıse to Olympos which will be the subject of my next post.

To The Old City

Travelling on ones own is always unpleasant but this point has never been proven so true to me as my travels between Ankara and istanbul. The day began with breakfest at the British institute of Archaeology in Ankara followed by6 a quick cab ride to the bus station and then after some time spent confusadly wandering the supposed largest bus terminal in the world caught a bus to istanbul. The bus itself was very nice. nicer than most Air Canada flights that i had been on.
However the steward did not speack any english so when he made an announcment and stopped the bus to let some people off i did not know if i should get off or not as i knew i was in istanbul but it looked like a suburban area so i stayed on the bus prayıng that that had not been the only stop in istanbul. a short time later we stopped at another offive where again i decided to stay on the bus to be rewareded some fifteen minutes later with the iğstanbul bus terminal.
it was the sketchiest bus terminal i had ever seen an unlit industrıal warrewn of streets filled with surly men yelling at one another in turkish. The bus soon rose to a more palatable platform where i dısembarked and having no idea where in istanbul i was decided to just follow the crowd and hope for a metro station. On my way to the terminal several men began yelling Taksi at first i ignored them but then alone and ignorant in an unfamiliar city i took one up on his offer and asked him to take me to the airport.
After a short negotiation of the price he led me BACK into the bowels of the bus depot where i immediatly began to regret my decision but found it too late to turn back. After some time he led me out onto a small side street threw my luggage into a car which already had a driver in it and motioned me in.
He then hoped into the passenger seat of the unmarked wite car which i was now sure was an illegal unlicensed taxi whose driveres i was now sure were taking me to some dark alley so that they could steal my belongings and dispose of me. Eventually though after being offered a cigarette several times and making limited small talk we approached the airport where they asked for my money some tıme before the terminal and underpaid some poor street vendor for water both of which served to make them appear even more sketchy.
Once at the airport i wandered around and managed to find the internatıonal arrivals terminal and got in the security line (a common practice here securıty check points) it is only after hoisting my bag onto the conveyor belt though that i recall i have both a knife and a chunk of obsıdion in it (the obsidion was not worked and therefor not illegal but i did not expect an airport securıty gaurd to know that) after a minor search of my bag concerning my locking net device i was let through much to my relief and despite my obvıous discompusure at being searched.
But i did manage to get there and meet up with David and we are currently both in a hostel in istanbul.

Please forgive any grammatical inaccuracies in this post. Turkish keyboards are hard to use. if any characters do not apear they are probably (i)s

Wrap-Up

Well the project is shutting down as of today, all of the finds have been processed and are packed to be delivered to the Corum Museum tomorrow morning and all of the workers are preparing to leave their home of one month. Considering this I thought it an appropriate time to address one of the most common questions I was asked before coming, namely what do you expect to find?
Well for the most part we found ceramics ranging from roof-tile to pithoi peices to Roman fine-wear with decoration or without we found hundreds of bags of ceramic peices. The next most common item we found were pieces of chipped stone in fact there was a workshop for chipped stone found on one of the hillsides which is littered with blades and other pieces such as negative flake scars.
Once we had moved from the intensive survey to the super intensive survey we began to find more interesting things Tesserae, colored pieces of glass used to make mosaics, pieces of marble faing and other worked architectural stone. n the extensive survey which I also took part in we found the most interesting pieces; column capitals bridge footings and Byzantine baptismal fonts.
Tomorrow I leave Mecitozu for Ankara and then to Istanbul I will continue updating as the oppurtunitites present themselves but this will be probably be less frequent than I update now.

The Old That Is Strong

As Sundays are our days off at the project I had the privilege of spending yesterday touring Hattusa the ancient Hittite capital. The Hittites were a people who, at their zenith, ruled most of Anatolia and controlled lands stretching South and East to border with Egypt's New Kingdom. The city itself is immense covering a wide area high in the mountains overlooking the fertile plain below. The site is very interesting with a great temple, large rock shrine and impressive if ineffective defensive structures.
I was somewhat disappointed with te extent of the tour and look forward to returning there sometime in August and making an entire day of it. As I am returning it was easy to turn down the proffered wares of the many merchants sited there selling stone carvings of Hittite reliefs and symbols, though others in my group bartered with them for these pieces one of the team who had been here lsat year endured a steady stream of abuse having paid full price (75 Lira) for a carving while one member of the team this year purchased one of similar size and quality for twenty Lira, he did not even try this year.

Remember That Time in Turkey?...

While in Cappadocia last weekend I and the rest of my group visited something called a Hamam a Turkish bath. These bathes are descendants of Roman bathes and visiting one was one of the highlights of my trip so far. The basic premise of the Bath is that you disrobe and then cover yourself with a specific kind of towel (which has a name in Turkish but i cannot recall it) and then enter a very hot room and lay down on very hot marble floors, puring cold water on yourself when you get too hot, there is also a sauna adjacent to said room the wall of which is so hot I'm fairly sure it hissed when i pressed my back against it. After you have sweated enough in this room and your skin has sufficiently softened you sit and wait for one of the attendants to call you on, he slaps you quite hard on the back (I do not know why but he did it to everyone) then washes you quite thoroughly ( I was amazed at the amount of filth he removed, though working in feilds for six hours a day every day may have had something to do with that) and then massages you before throwing startlingly cold water at you and sending you off to change and luxuriate in the sensation of being utterly absolutely clean. After a short tea service we were done, and I must say it is one of the highlights of my trip so far.

Cappadocia and the Surronding Environs

Last weekend all of the fields walkers and a few of the team leaders took a trip to Cappadocia, this is an area of Eastern Central Turkey famed for its landscape (if you have seen a postcard of Turkey and it does not have Istanbul on it, it probably shows Cappadocia). The area is a large plain surrounded by volcanoes which erupted some time ago and covered the entire area with a layer of volcanic rock called tufa, this rock is amazingly soft so when people began to inhabit the area rather than build houses above the ground they instead carved into the rock itself which had been eroded into spires and mouds and canyons by wind and water by this time. People still live in similar odings boring rooms and halls into the rock itself, they are even sold as normal homes (providing they are outside of a historical site) and you can even buy an uncarved spire and carve it yourself (something that is now added to my dream homes list). While there we visited dozens of ancient churchs carved into the rock and even an entire city beneath the surface. It went eight levels down (well eleven really but only eight were open to the public) and at some points I had to completely double over to fit myself into the sometimes small tunnels between rooms. They estimate some hundreds of people ould have lived there.
Cappadocia is also where we visited a carpet workshop and got to see how Turkish carpets are made and even to help a little (though i'm sure we were only slowing the workers down with our clumsy fingers) We were then brought into a carpet show room and given a number of drinks and then shown at least a hundred in carpets which layered the floor by the end of the session the salesman showed us everything from simple kalims to silk carpets worth around 10,000 USD. I then made the questionable decision of purchasing a carpet myself, perhaps it was the two turkish coffees I had had by then (I have taken quite a fondness to it).
On the last night in Cappadocia we went to a rather touristy dinner and a show with Whirling Dervishs performing a ceremony in the beginning and then folk-dancing followed by belly-dancing Feliz, Turkish member of our team had previously taught us a popular Turkish dance often done at weddings so when the dancers began grabbing people from the audience we fit right in. It was a fun night during which i tried both Raki, the traditional Turkish liquor which tastes something like black liquorice and Istanblue, a Turkish vodka which tastes something like Raki.

Feild Walking For the Uninitiated

Perhaps some of you have been wondering what it is exactly that I am doing here in Turkey? No? Well it is not exactly the most exciting thing in the world so I suppose I don't blame you. But anyways, what I do is something called feild walking the job is what it sounds like: walking, through fields. Simply put a bunch of people line up along the edge of a field each one 15m from the last and begin to walk at a perpendicular angle to the edge of said field. Each 15m they stop and record what they have found in that area. Fascinating is it not? This goes on for six hours from 6am until nooon when we head home for lunch and we cover, on average twenty some feilds ranging in size from fields a lone person can walk in a few minutes to fields over half a kilometer long.
The most exciting part of this is of course the artifacts that are found, these consist mostly of pottery. Pieces of pottery are called sherds (not shards, sherds) and can be of many different types the most common type is a body sherd that is a peice of the pot from any section other than the rim the base or the handle these are left on the ground unless decorated or otherwise unique as their eight would drag us down and they provide no diagnostic information anyways. Those that do provide diagnostic information, that is to say a rim base or handle are kept and brought back to base to be cleaned (With a toothbrush) weeded (some stones still manage to get by us) and marked (with a steel-tip pen) and then drawn. Lithics (stones) are also found most commonly chipped stone blades, cores from which the blades were chipped, or ground stone which was carved for use in a building. These are some of my favorite finds as the blades can be beutiful translucent stone of varying colors. An obsidian blade was found last week and casued quite a stir as the nearest source of smoky-gray obsidian is on the Western coast of Turkey some 8-hours drive West of here.
While I participate in all of the jobs above I have been selected to draw pottery along with another student, I would like to say it is because of my artistic skill but in truth I am merely competent and was trained on the first day before the pottery experts were too busy to train new people. I do enjoy it though and I have heard that the pottery expert (Top Five in the mediterranean and the est in her own field, very big in pottery circles) said that I was very good so hopefully I will have a chance to work with her again someday. When drawing I take the piece record it as faithfully as I am able and then extrapolate what the pot would have look like as much as the piece allows me to.
So that is an overly drawn out account of my job here at Mecitozu, "walking along feilds and then drawing what I find" would perhaps have sufficed but where would the fun be in that?

How To Dress Like an Old Turkish Man: A Guide.

In short follow the same path as me. Upon arriving in Turkey (and after leaving the airport) I found that everything here is dirt cheap. Food, taxis, water, everything so when I noticed that many of the older men here (especially in the more rural areas) wear a certain type of hat I decided that I would purchuse one both to blend in and because they are fantastic hats. I went today to buy one and spent at least an hour in the shop chatting with the owner his son daughter and uncle (who is a policeman from Ankara) over coke which he had his son run across the street and buy. After this had finished we went upstairs and I selected a hat after another conversation of perhaps equal length with just his son and daughter i bought the hat. For 5 lira. That is about 3 dollars Canaduan and it is a fairly nice hat that I would expect to spend at least twenty on in Canada. Anyways the family that owns the shop is very nice the owner's son Omar has just finished school and now works full-time for his father whom he describes as "unique" though I think eccentric would e more colloquial and he certainly lives up to that description. We here at the project suspect that the owner (whose name unfortunatly i cannot recall) wants to marry his son off to Lizzie one of the girls on the project. We also suspected that a local man wanted to marry his daughter off to one of the males as he asked a number of them there age and seemed rather pleased to find one who was 19 (It was not me though I suppose i would fall into that category as well).
Before I leave I also intend to get a vest custom tailored for me (at the price of 30 Lira perhaps 24 Canadian) which is also a common garment for a gentlemen who is puching on in his years. So I suppose that by the time I leave I truly will dress like an old Turkish man.

Chai and Other Matters

With today's instant communication cheap and fast travel and globalizing economies one would think that all of the cultures of the world would begin to confrom to one ideal. I was under the impression that this was, to one degree or another, the case before I made this trip. With McDonalds the world over and a KFC within sight of the Gaza pyramids how could I not? But I have found to my great pleasure that the culture here in Turkey is both different from my own and exceptional in its own right, despite the fact that Burger Kings dot Istanbul and Coke is available everywhere.
There are the obvious differences of course that mainly follow from Turkey being a Muslim state. Many of the women wear headresses and long dresses and mosques stand on each street corner calling the faithful to prayer five times a day. But having lived in rural Turkey for a short time I have noticed more subtle variations in the culture. First and foremost is the friendliness of the people despite the fact that I cannot speak more than a dozen words of Turkish they always stop to converese in one manner or another with me. This point was made most clear to me on my last two days in the field. My team's survey area had taken us to the very edge of the village where pepole were constantly taking an intereset in our activites children followed us through several fields and farmers always came to talk with us when we were near their homes. On one occasion yesterday we were asked in for Chai, a strong tea drunk cut with water and sugar. The man who did not speak a word of English ushered us into his yard and lay out several carpetes for us to sit on, shortly thereafter the farmer's wife (I presume) came out bearing Chai for all eight of us. She began to pour hot water into one glass, swirled it about and then poured it from that glass into the next until all of them had been rinsed then she filled each cup half full of chai and topped them up with hot water from the larger of the two huge teapots she carried stacked one atop the other. I thought it was very kind of them to treat us so, there were even biscuits on the tea trays, but then they began to bring out the food: a great platter of bread, then a bowl of goat cheese and one of parsley or perhaps cilantro to go on the cheese then a delicious sweet bread and then a bowl of fresh picked apricots and sweet peppers, all from their own garden. We sat there for an hour and a half eatting and trying out best to converse with the man and his wife who were soon joined by several older men and women as well as their daughter (once again an assumption).
Today in the feild we were asked in for chai several times but had to refuse as politly as we could ecause of the amount of work we had yet to do. Even after our refusals the farmers brought out some food for us. One gave us a bucket of the most delicious raspberries any of us had ever had and another gave us a bag of some small plum like fruit which I could not identify ut happily eat three of.
The differences in my own culture and the one here go on and on of course varying from things like erratic and sometimes nervewracking driving to the call to prayer echoing from the nearby mosque each morning and listing them all would take far longer than I am willing to spend, but it is a great comfort to know that in this modern world some cultural distinctions still exist.

Connection

Well we finally got the internet working here at the project headquarters so I am able to update. I have not been doing a great deal of work the past couple of days, mostly cards and clue, in French which makes it twice as awesome (and Clue is pretty awesome to begin with). Today was our first day of field walking but we got rained out before too long so all I found was a roof tile. The project headquarters is a great place to stay the food is fantastic and regular and the accomadations are comfortable if simple.
The town is very interesintg there are a number of old Ottoman buildings and a large Byzantine greek inscription in the town square. The people are very friendly and try to be helpful even with the presence of a significant language barrier. Everyone in town is interested in the project and we attract attention no matter where we go, children especially are interested in us and they often drop by the headquarters in the evening to play sports. A child no older than eight schooled me at basketball and I have not even tried to join in the games of football.
The culture shock is not overwhelming but it is very noticable the mosques of the town issue the call to prayer five times a day summoning all of the local faithful to prayers.
The bus system is as good as had been led to believe, we were given ice cream on the bus before it had even left and the service was reminicint of an airplane. Speacking of which the plane rides to Frankfurt and subsequently Ankara were confortable and even omewhat luxerious with hot towels and free drinks, i was even bumped up to first class for the trip from Frankfurt to Ankara because i and an American were made to wait in line for an hour or so before being helped. After striking up a conversation with him i discovered that he too was traveling to Turkey on an archeaological project somewhat East of our own and pleasently spent a plae ride with him and one of his colleagues discussing our respective programs. I would love to relate some more detailed stories but as the computer is shared they will have to wait for later.
P.S. I did not have any jetlag, told you so.

And Whither Then?

It is the morning of my flight to Ankara and this is the last dawn I will see in Canada for two months I have packed my somewhat ridiculous looking backpack with everything I think that I will need over those two months and have left behind no less than seven objects which I will quickly find obligatory and have taken no less than eleven which I will never remove from my backpack. Nonetheless I am near as ready as I will ever be to go, I'm sure that I will miss Calgary and Canada when I have gone but right now it is hard to think of anything other than my trip. Some of that may be because it seems to be the only thing I have talked about for the last two months whether from everyone else forcing the subject or my own obsession with it every conversation I have seems to lean in that direction and I'm sure that for some time after my trip it is all I will talk about for quite some time.Perhaps my favorite part of the trip is tha fact that for the second month I have no idea what city or even what country I will be in. The first month I will be in Ankara Avkat and surrounding locales but whither then? I cannot say.

There and Not Quite Back Again

So Hello... This blog is made to document my trip to Turkey I will leave on the 8th of July 2009 and return to Toronto on the 4th of September 2009. I will not have access to the internet continueslly thoughout my trip but Iw ill update this as often as I can.
I leave for Ankara Turkey tomorrow at 1:05 PM and fly for twenty-one hours (including the layover in Frankfurt) thus I will arrive at 3:00 AM Turkish time. As I arrive two days before most of the students do I will be arriving shortly before John Haldon (An Archaeology prof. from Princeton) so I will wait for two more hours at the airport and meet him then head to the British Institute at Ankara's Hostel a short distance away and stay there for two nights.
So... yeah hanging out with a Princeton Professor who is the head of the project I am working on will be nerve wracking to say the least. And the absurdly long flight will not help my already inept social skills.
For the flight I got a book of Zombie short stories with one written by Neil Gaimen!