updates

Hey everyone,
It's been awhile since I updated here, so I figured I'd post a blurb on the last few weeks. Things have been pretty busy; I had 2 presentations today, and I have another presentation and paper tomorrow. After that, I'll be pretty free for a bit, but then finals begin, which'll be barrels of fun.

Two weekends ago, I took a field trip for my Museology class, which was amazing. We toured Gordion, where Alexander the Great cut the Gordion Knot before going on to conquer pretty much everywhere he could find. There was a nice museum there, with a ton of pottery, and some bones, but the really interesting part of the site was King Midas' tumulus (burial mound); it's been excavated, but we could enter the tumulus and see the actual burial chamber. For those of you thinking, "wait a minute....Midas???", yes, it's the tomb of the Midas, he of the Golden Touch. Gordion was a happening place way back when.
After that, we headed off to Midas Sehri, where we saw Midas' Tomb. This was for a different Midas; if you were a Phrygian king, you got you choice of names: Midas or Gordius. There're several of each. Midas' Tomb is cut like a Phrygian temple face, which is really stunning; it was absolutely enormous. The sides were engraved with Phrygian script, which looks very much like futhark/runic. Across from the tomb was a large rock formation with a couple dozen small caves carved into it; apparently it was a monastery at some point in time. Around the back of Midas' Tomb, there was a half-carved temple; it was abandoned at some point in time, and just left, half carved. A little ways into the rest of the Midas Sehri site, we saw a cave tomb, with three sarcophagi (I think...) inside. We also climbed through a Phrygian cistern, past ancient water-collection pools, and saw all that remained of a 6th-century-BC two-storey house (2 post holes in the stone). On the way back towards the bus, we passed an ancient altar, and several more caves, which were really unusual because they were bright green (it was the lichen).
After Midas Sehri, we stopped at a restaurant for a trout lunch, which was pretty good, especially since I'm now used to getting the whole fish instead of trout filets.

On the way back to Ankara (it was a loooong way back-- Midas Sehri is over halfway to Istanbul from Ankara), the most random thing happened: we stopped at a military base for tea. The professor just told the bus driver to turn in, and off we went, past weapons armories, training facilities, and lots of guys in combat fatigues, til we arrived at what looked very much like a regional park: there was a playground, and walking paths, and picnic shelters. It was a little bizarre, especially once the guys in combat fatigues started walking around with trays of tea and pide (Turkish pizza, but closer to meaty bruschetta). There was even a little stream, with ducks, and one soldier was stationed on the bridge over the stream with a tub of bread, to feed the ducks (and the fish in the stream, of course). I've got to say, if I was in the Turkish Army, I'd much rather have duck-feeding duty than Diyarbakir duty.

It was quite an interesting field trip; I've pictures on Facebook, which you can see here:
http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032338&l=67ff2&id=911357

This weekend looks like it should be very interesting: I found out today that I'll be participating in an EU simulation occurring Thursday through Sunday at METU. I'll be representing Estonia, as their Foreign Minister at the Ceneral Affairs Council. I don't know much about Estonia other than its location and general Baltic issues, so I'll be Googling madly in the next few days to become an impromptu Estonian expert. I'm hoping it'll be a fun experience; at the very least it'll be a crash course in how the EU operates. Next weekend, I may get to Cappadochia, or possibly Georgia (the country, not the state...), but we'll see when my finals are scheduled first.

Hope you all are doing well,
I can't believe I've only got a month left here in Turkey,
-R