Jarom in Jerusalem: Day 3- Troy and Me

Got up at 6:00 AM, as we would do every morning. Istanbul is located between two continents- Europe and Asia so for breakfast I told everyone that there was new meaning to the phrase “continental breakfast.” Thought you’d enjoy that one, Mom. We drove and then crossed from Europe to Asia by ferry. Some Gypsy on the ferry convinced me to buy 10 dollar cologne. Our tour guild apparently doesn’t like Gypsies, he says all they do is sell knock-off brands (dishonest he says) and pick-pocket people. He told me the cologne could give me cancer. And he never failed to mention if someone was a gypsy.

Anyway, on the way to our next site we stopped on the side of the road where there were goats on our right and sheep on our left. Maybe we should have been coming from the other way. J Our guild asked a Shepard if we would see and pet his sheep. He said yes but the sheep ran away from us and the beastly sheep dogs they have here were barking at us. Anyway, he walked over and grabbed a sheep and brought it over to us. We got to pet it and take pictures. Probably the most memorable thing about the whole experience was how incredibly proud the shepard was to show off his sheep to this group of random American tourists. Pure pride.

Anyway, we visited Troia, which is ancient Troy! Actually, It wasn’t as exciting as you might think, it was kind of butchered by an early archeologist who only wanted treasure, and there really wasn’t anything super special other than some walls and 7 levels of troy from different periods. It's the site of the Trojan War as found in the Iliad by Homer. (The war probably didn't happen like it does in the epic.) But the modern town was fun. The town bought the huge horse from Hollywood when they made that movie troy with Brad Pit, and it sits in the town next to a basketball court and square. Some BYU students played with the kids there. We took some pictures by the sea and walked around and night and bought some souvenirs. A good dinner too!