November 19th - Turkey run

Graeme, we recently spent two weeks travelling through Turkey by car. What did you think of the trip?

It was fun, and it was boring.

 What things did you see?

In Capadoccia we climbed a really big house but it was made out of caves. The Christians and the Romans were against each other and the Christians ran away from the Romans and they found a whole bunch of caves and they said “This looks like a nice spot so how about we stay here so the Romans can’t find us?” and our family- we stayed in a cave that was warm and protected from bullets and bombs. I remember the puppies. We saw two baby puppies and we saw a momma puppy. We got to go in an underground city- there is a whole bunch of caves and the underground city was in Capadoccia. There was a tunnel and it was dark and you could go in there only if you have a light.

We got there by car.

Where else did we go?

In Troy we saw a big pile of rocks, but they weren’t just a big pile of rocks, it was also ruined and you got to see the leftovers of all the houses and we got to climb in a big horse that you could go in two levels.

What was special about that horse?

What was special about that horse was that some people – the Greeks built that horse and they um went to the castle and said we want to be friends with you and so we’ll give you this big horse. And they wheeled it in with big wheels, and it had huge wheels, then they left it outside of the castle and then in the middle of the night they all the soldiers jumped out of the horse and then they attacked the king and took over the city and got everybody killed except the Greeks.

Where else did we go?

Istanbul- I forgot what we see in Istanbul. We got to see a blue Mosque and a blue mosque is where some people sing to remind people to pray to God every day, five times.

What is interesting about those Mosques and that God?

That religion is Muslim. The Muslims are people that live there and they pray five times a day and there is a big square building. That big square building is where – I forget.

What else can you tell me about the Muslims?

They read the Koran in the Mosque. There is a Kaaba in Saudi Arabia and we are not allowed to go there and you can only go there if you work there (or if you’re Muslim of course) and you go around the Kaaba seven times and you go between the mountains seven times and you drink from a well and that is called the Hajj and you sacrifice an animal and that is called the Hajj. That’s all I want to tell you about that, yeah- that’s it.

Okay- What else did we see in Istanbul?

The security guard gave me a toy that you take a rope and wrap it around the ball and you throw it down and when it’s right side up then you put it on the ground and then you can do it again (A combination of yo-yo and spinning top) We also saw and interesting part of the city called a Cistern. The Cistern, what it was famous for was it held like two thousand gallons of water. We dressed up like a Sultan and we got our picture taken in the Cistern. We went and found Medussa’s head and one was upside down and one was sideways.  Who was Medussa? Medussa was in a movie and if you looked at her you would turn to stone.

Tell me about the palace that we saw.

We got to see the cool part of the palace was there was a whole bunch of swords and an axe and there was a really big sword for the horses and if the horses will run into guys and the guys will get killed by the sword. And we saw jewelry and it was very pretty, and the king was lucky cause he got to see a view of the Ocean.

Do you want to talk about anything else?

We stayed in a 5-star hotel and it had a pool at the lowest floor (editor note: off season rates!) and we got to stay in a fancy room and we got to eat at the hotel cause they had a café and also a place where my Mom could work and they have internet. We went swimming a lot and for the last one we got to swim for two hours. I practiced the survival float and treading water and my Dad I let him throw me in the pool which is the ‘funnest’ thing. And Mom gave me a Turkish Bath and we sneaked in and it was free and my Mom showed me what it was like. It costs a lot to take a Turkish bath cause it’s like 60 Euro’s, and my Dad knows how to speak Turkish but not very much.