DAY XII

Merhaba Family & Friends,

What a day this has been! It all began with an early morning wake up call you pick up not understanding a word their saying because it's all in Turkish. Then, it's the daily race against my roommates, Niiang & Michelle, to the restroom. Luckily, today we were able to get ready with little complications making it to breakfast with 20 minutes to spare. We ate quickly leaving enough time to stock up on food. By 8:30 am we're "on the road again," this time heading to Ephesus. Ephesus is mentioned several times in the Bible. The well-known story about Ephesus is when Paul was speaking in the acropolis to the Romans against their idols of Artemis. Paul was booed off the stage, fortunately, leaving the city alive. We were actually able to see the acropolis in person, it was huge! It could hold up to 22,000 people! There were many other things to see also, like the library, different styles of pillars, the agora, & we can't forget about the lovely restroom! Ephesus was amazing, unfortunately, it was really hot today so at times we were racing to the shade overlooking a couple things on the way. Nonetheless, we were still able to stop every so often for impromptu photo shoots, which caused us to get left behind by the tour guide (we can't help it if we're a photogenic group :o) The Mallery's were even able to get a cute Christmas Greeting Picture out of one of the photo shoots! 

After visiting Ephesus, our next stop was the Ephesus Museum in Selcuk (the "c" in Selcuk has a funky squiggle under it but I can't seem to figure it out how to do it so . . .) Anywho, once we got there we saw the preserved artifacts that were excavated from the site. The gladiator exhibition was very interesting. I can't believe people enjoyed watching others kill as a sport! I love sports & all but that's a bit much! 

Later, we were set free to eat lunch on our own, which in reality means eat-food-that-you-"borrowed"-from-the-hotel. Michelle, Niiang, Katie, Ramona, and I had a lovely little picnic just chatting away about girl things. We met up with Meagan & Jasmine giggling away to Dane Cook & his top heavy koolaid pitcher. The next thing we know, it's time to get back into the bus to continue our journey on to Pamukkale aka Cotton Castle. The drive was about 3 hours long so we popped in Leslie's Prince Caspian movie and fell asleep to a laughing witch and Alex conjuring up pranks for a bus load of sleeping students (yeah I know, not the best thing to fall asleep to but we're exhausted!) Once we arrived at the tavertines, calcium carbonate pools, we trekked up awhile and then out of nowhere a Marshmallow Kingdom appeared! Seriously, it was unreal! The sight left me speechless. . . . . . .see that was my speechless moment :o). We were able to walk along replicas of the tavertines, which wasn't the most comfortable thing, but we managed to do it making it all the way to the bottom with the help of Christina and Julian. 

Lastly, after walking around in the tavertines we headed to our hotel to freshen up for Sabbath evening vespers. Following, vespers we ate a magnificent meal at our hotel's buffet feeling our stomaches so that we will have a peaceful nights rest. Until next time. . . .

                                                                 Happy Sabbath,

Chelsea Johnson

To my family & friends,

I hope all is well back home. I miss & love yall more than yall could imagine! See ya soon. -chels