05.18.2011 –Ҫanakkale, Gelibolu, Troia, Assos
Personal:
Drive from Istanbul to Assos:
Because we have to stop every two hours for the bus driver (labor laws), we had Ҫay tea at the market beside the gas station. There I purchased two newspapers, the Milliyet and Hurriyet, but everything was in Turkish. Good news is they gave me a free Atatürk bumper sticker!
Lunch was about twenty minutes from the Greek border at a seaside restaurant on a peninsula. It was another five courses (including huge oranges and baklava for dessert), and a little too filling for the upcoming bus ride.
On our way to the Ҫanakkale Strait from lunch, we saw a heard of sheep walking along the side of the freeway! We also passed by a BP oil station and a Disney “Cars” sign marketing a car shop.
We then took a car ferry (with several coach busses) across the Dardanelles Strait to Gelibolu/Gallipoli (“good city” in Greek), where 500,000 soldiers were killed in 1915 over a strip of land from the Ottomans, English, French, German, and Australians (I think). This was the first battle that the Ottomans and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk won, giving him his respect and stature that sets the stage for his societal and political revolution. The name of our car ferry was “Onsekiez Mart,” which means the eighteenth of March, noting this battle. Gelibolu is also where the Ottomans first set foot on the Anatolian Peninsula in 1354 (just 100 years before they captured Constantinople) during the period of the second Sultan.
Our next stop was Troia (Troy) with the infamous Trojan horse that is 95% myth and 5% legendary. Homer only vaguely refers to it in the Iliad.
Assos was our final destination, luckily, after such a long day of driving and sight-seeing. The shops closed extremely early, so we spent the evening on the mini-pier overlooking the Greek Island, Lesbos (known for a few philosophers that I can’t remember just yet), across the Aegean Sea. We attempted to go into the water, but it was freezing. See video haha posted on Facebook haha.
Sustainability:
Solar panels/solar-powered water heaters on nearly every roof
Only CFL light bulbs
Hotel cards turn power on/off in each room, and only one card distributed per room
Wind turbines actually working on hills
Quotes:
“Hey guys – let’s play spot the mosque!”
“I spy with my Turkish eye…”
“I’m about as confident in FOX news as I am in the Trojan horse…5%”
Research:
On the drive:
Greek Orthodox Patriarch – Church of St. Georgoe
Bulgarian Orthodox Church – made entirely of metal, imported
Jewish synagogues and hospital
“İŞҪİ Partisi” – research
(See Gollipoli and Atatürk notes from above)
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