Had a good breakfast, some cherries, delicious bread, some sausage, and then onto the bus. Slept a bit, sat a bit, looked out the window, had to correct Nate and David on Greek Mythology about how the Trojan War started (I later asked David if I was going to have to do Norse Mythology in Germany), chatted a bit, we stopped at a store somewhere in all that mess. I was conked out but semi-woke up, then David told me they had pencils.

PENCILS.

I went into the store, asked Swaffie, got a pack of 8 pencils, 5 pens, and a fanta. PENCILS. AND PENS. OMGWTFBBQ. So exciting.

See, I knew I was going to lose pencils on this trip. I didn't know that they were impossible to find in most of the world. I had decided no country outside of the US even sold pencils ever. But they were here! It was exciting.

Onward, used a car/bus ferry and the wind was COLD but it was cool, stopped at a little store, had some tea, and then into Troy. Yeah, Troy. That Troy.

We had a good guide who showed us a few things outside first, some displays explaining the levels of the city and the history of its excavation, a big replica wooden horse, and then into the city itself. It's not very big, but it's pretty impressive. They do a really good job of showing the different levels/eras of construction, often right next to each other. Some very cool stuff, and we learned about the ongoing work there, there's still something like 90% of the site not yet excavated. Well worth the long ride.

We went back to the little store, had delicious delicious apple tea. We talked with an older man who was somewhat hard to understand, but he talked about the contributions of the Turkish military in various conflicts from Korea to Serbia to Afghanistan (the army, he claimed, is the second strongest in the world), I think some things about Armenia but I'm not sure (if I understood him correctly Armenian illegal immigrants are like Mexican illegal immigrants in the states, but maybe not), and a lot about politics. Talked about how terrorists sell hashish to make money, and the quote I liked the best, “terrorists have no religion.” Seemed a knowledgeable guy, albeit opinionated in the “very proud of his country” way. That was cool.

We headed to our hotel, which is pretty nice, had a brief break, explored the TV options (not many, though some music, some sports, and CNN). dinner which had salad, bread, soup, chicken/mushroom dish and rice (Matt and I got Brenna's meat, hoorah!), the waiter mistook Liz being vegetarian to mean to bring her ONLY meat which was funny, and a delicious chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles to round it out. Short class in 5 minutes, then... in here? out on the town? Not sure yet.

Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:45-6:55 PM