Hello (Merhaba) from Canakalle (prounounced Chan-a-ka-lay), Turkey..... I am only a few kilometers away from the ancient city of Troy, which I took a tour of this morning.

It was not quite as I expected... only five percent is actually excavated. And what is excavated is in complete ruin. There is really no way to tell what you are looking at... it's pretty much just a pile of rubble. That said, it is still quite significant and being there made my imagination run wild with images of Brad Pitt storming the nearby beaches. :)
No, really... it was cool. Our guide was very knowledgable and during our tour ended up going into some WWI history about the nearby beaches (Gilopoli) where thousands of Australians and New Zealanders (in addition to Turks) died fighting as allies to the British and Germans in 1915.

It's funny, a few days ago when we were in Cappadocia, we met a Canadian man who had just bought some land and was excavating an old Greek village carved into the rocks. We got to tour the excavation site (we found pottery shards and carving tools while walking around) and I remember being awed that this village hadn't yet been uncovered. It's all about having the financial support to do so. I don't know if there are any budding archaelogists out there... if so, you should seriously come to Turkey (especially if you have the financial means to run your own excavation). There is so much here that has yet to be discovered! It's very exciting.

Travel bud Lorri has already left for Africa. Pam and I are headed on a night bus tonight (yuck, I hate night buses) to Ephesus, an ancient Greek city with (supposedly) wonderfully preserved Greek ruins that rival Athens itself. The town we will be staying in is called Kusadasi (pronounced Ku-sha-da-see).

Both Pam and I have decided that we are not headed to Greece after this. I need to stay away from the Euro!!! My budget will not allow any more of Europe.... so here in about a week and a half, we will take a flight to Bangkok. It's cool that Pam is coming with. We get along very well and it's nice to have someone else around.

Someone asked me recently what I've been eating. Well, I had been eating mostly like crap (just bread and cheese, mainly) until I got to Turkey. The food here is absolutely amazing and amazingly cheap as well. I live on chicken kabobs, grilled and sauted eggplant, stuffed grape leaves (domaties), yougurt dip, fruit, cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives... lots of olives. In Istanbul, we found these stuffed muscles that you can buy off a street vendor. They are cooked muscles stuffed with rice and seasonings with a little bit of cinnamon sprinkled in. They are served with lemon juice squirted on top. YUM!!!! The weight that I had lost in Czech Rep, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Italy is actually coming back. My pants fit again. That is good and bad. :)