I wıll wrıte wıth mıstakes sınce the keyboard here ıs so dıfferent

ı ve been here about 5 days wıth an incredible local guıde named Lutfi Atay who has a PhD ın Tourısm and knows hıs country very well.  Because one of my clıents worked wıth Lutfı  he has gıven me a very specıal tour so far.

I've vısted Ephesus and Pumekale which are near the west coast-- Ephesus just 10 miles from the water.  Pumekale was inland a couple hours by bus and had a similar ancient city - Hieropolis (approximately 2000 years old or more with a population at that time of 150,000 or 200,000).  Pumekale was known for it's hotspring mineral pools and the healing waters drew many people, including Cleopatra and Mark Anthony- for their honeymoon.  I swam in the same pool which had acquired some large fallen marble columns that were submerged under the water and dangerous to bump into when you swam. 

(these pools are too fragile for swimming, but there were adjacent pools people could soak in as well as the ancient Cleopatra pool that had been built with marble nearby)

Pergomom was also an old city on the west coast near Ismir and like Pumekale's Hieropolis, built high on a mountain.  Really stunning view.  While I was in Pergomom, I visited a very old rug company of Pergomom that went back at least 15 generatıons and employs 1500 woman to hand-dye and hand make all theır rugs.  It's a special company since they salary the women to ensure they will continue to make rugs and are given a good wage.  I took a tour where he showed me how they make them, served me tea, and of course bought some small beautıful rugs!

So much to wrıte but have to go!  The eggplant dıshes here are beyond words.

Ciao!

İ am still learning to use the turkish keyboard and will skip punctuatıon since that is boggling for me.

as you can see, i am in istanbul and have a few more days to not buy a rug and resist the temptation to do so.  the problem is i love to look at them-- the rugs, and i cannot hide my appreciation of the artwork and craftsmanship which only excites or incites the salesmen who come running to me with a tray of tea and want me to spend the afternoon just looking-- they say-- and i think this temptation at it,s finest.  ı am sure that the devil must train these guys in temptation-- they are very vey good.  And i seem to be their perfect viıtım!  Blond, blue-eyed and American. 

and yes, i dıd fall into sın and buy a rug-- but i have repented and am counting the days before i leave so i donit fall ınto greater sins.  in fact, when i walk by the countless rugs hanging within my reach, i just hum a little happy song and look out of the corner of my eye-- trying to improve my peripheral vision and not make eye contact with the salesmen who cry, hello lady, where are you from? -- or some questıon that is so friendly that my midwestern upbringing compells me to answer.  Anyway, I survived today in Istanbuhl without buying a rug.  An American woman İ met in Kapedokya was quite traumatized in İstanbuhl by the pushy manipulative salesmen (İ don,t know how she survived Manhatten-- she is not a typical New Yorker).  Anyway, we went shopping for gıfts in Kapedokya which İ have found in retrospect is the worst place in all of Turkey to shop.  The merchants in Kapedokya must have extra testosterone or something scary-- we both found ourselves hostage in a few crazy shops and barely got out with our sanity.  I suppose İndıa ıs worse, and don,t think i would do well there eıther. 

i haven,t been able to get onto my blog for days for some reason and each day is so full of experiences, ı am not sure which to write about.

one memory that comes to mind is spending a late afternoon in Konya, a huge city ın the middle of Turkey that is a Sufı center-- where Rumi lived and also a big Moslem city-- conservative.  it ıs not a tourist town and i went to see the whirlıng dervishes there and was lucky to see their weekly performance-- which was magical and very calming to watch 15 men twirling in white flowing skirts for an hour to a traditional turkish orchestra of old instruments.  enchanting-- and i had a man from Afghanistan who was sufi-muslim who ınterpreted for me and explained the entire ritual and philosophy.  We talked much before the performance and i felt so lucky to have him sitting there explaining everything.  He also talked about how much the Turks like America and i told him about my Feldenkrais work.  He mentioned how he had a lot of physical therapy 15 years ago after the Russıans had attacked Afghanistan and he was ın the hospital for 5 years from burns and had a lot of therapy.  Here was a young man-- maybe 27 or 28 who survived a horrible war and recovery and can walk now and functıon very well.  He had an arranged marriage with an Afghani woman over a year ago-- they were together for 5 or 6 days and now she is in the US and he is waiting for his green card to meet her after a year of waiting. 

,Isn,t that a long time?-- İ asked him.  He shrugged and said yes, of course but İ have to wait until they get my card. 

How is ıt to have an arranged marrıage?  I asked and wondered-- he was a very modern looking man.  He said, he doesn,t know yet-- she seems OK and that they will work it out because both families need them to work it out.  He accepted this in the same way he talked about getting through the 5 years in the hospital-- pretty amazing acceptance of what is his fate.  I marveled at his patience in his presence and hospitality with me.

I really enjoyed Konya.  İn one day, İ met so many people and conversed ın broken Turkish (like speaking in a crossword puzzle fashion with my dictionary) -- carefully selecting the one darn word to express myself using gestures and facial expressions to fill in the gap-- thank god my mother was such a clown-- İ acquired some of her antics and had groups of people come and sit on the park bench where İ would be journaling and wait for me to say hello-- or they would say hello and gıggle shyly.  İn 2 hours İ had a group of 8 young boys talk wıth me, a group of teenage girls with one that was getting married the next day, a group of women and their chıldren grilling me on why i wasn,t married, more women who were sisters asking me why i was alone, and another group of women with children asking all kinds of questıonsç 

Very curious people.  İ felt lıke a tropical bird passing through their territory. 

Earlıer that same day after going to a Hammam (a turkish bath) with the wife of a rug dealer (-- yes İ did buy a rug from him).  I was strolling through a neighborhood and heard this lovely Turkish folk music and stopped to see there was a little party going on with food and some local bake and craft sale.  İ love this kınd of thing and lingered by these women ın black veıls sıttıng on the ground making some fresh pastries with stuffing baked ınside on a griddle.  The pastry looked lıke Norwegian lefsa (but İ found out later they don,t lıke cooking with potato and were almost offended that İ asked if they used potato!).  One of the women smiled and waved for me to come to her. 

It turns out thıs was a fundraiser for Mongoloıd chıldren,s school and they were thrilled to find out about my Feldenkrais with disabled children and introduced me to all the teachers and doctors there.  Wıth my dictionary, i had a wonderful time with these people. 

So Konya, even though I was only there a for two days-- was a wonderful place with very friendly, sweet people.  Special to stay at the Rumi Hotel-- just accross the street from the museum of Rumi and other sacred Moslem objects. 

Well, so much more to write but have more experiencing to do!

Cıao!

Annıe

Well, it's been six weeks since I've written and I returned to work today after a three month retreat to Greece, Turkey, Oregon, Seattle and the wild places of Eastern Washington.

I am still feeling my time in Turkey and this photo reminds me of the mysteries that are unseen around us.  The flash of my camera (which is something like 30 times brighter than the sun) picked up these "energy orbs" - little and sometimes big balls of light that hover around in various, often sacred places like this cave monastery I visited that was from 300 AD (or even earlier) in Kapadokya, Turkey.  I've had so many truly amazing experiences this summer of people connecting with me in such loving ways that these orbs seem to confirm that there must be more than random coincidences and occurrences to life.  I felt a presence in this church and was relieved to find the camera picked up something as well.  There were many places like this in Turkey, especially in these sacred caves.  I have pictures in these caves with so many orbs in them that it's hard to see the people!

To add more to the mystery of my summer experiences, I had sent of a cheek scraping sample for my DNA to be tested by the National Geographic Genome Project that can identify your earliest ancestors through DNA testing and look at the migration pattern of your ancestors from our human roots in Africa.  I didn't get my test results back until after I had returned home to Seattle. 

I had picked Greece and Turkey to visit because I wanted to explore the roots of civilization and connect to the old and sacred places that I felt would speak the most to my background.  When I got home and checked my test results of my DNA sample, my genetic ancestors were of the first migration to leave Africa, go through the Mid-East and into Turkey by a town 20 miles or so from the city of Konya (which was one of my favorite places of the trip) and then head north, eventually landing in Northern Norway (where one of my family members lives).  How incredibleand wonderful that I intuitively followed this migration path in my journey this summer!  And how funny I felt in Konya, the people treated me like a long-lost relative who was coming home for a visit.

I think often of the people I met in Konya--  their warmth and attention.  They were very curious and kind to me, wanting to talk and have me stay longer.

These adorable boys talked to me for a long time and then posed together.

And this family of women also talked and joked with me.  One of the women asked me,  "Who is more fat, me or my sister?" 

I laughed and said, "No way am I going to answer that!"  

The women giggled and nodded and then the whole group posed for a photo for me to take home.  (These long rain-coats are the style there-- even in 80 degree weather.)

And then there are the sufi Whirling Dervishes, whose music often sounds Native American-- apparently the shamanic tradition of the Native Americans comes from Turkey, including the music.  I loved the symbolic dance with one hand toward heaven and the other toward earth with the human body making the bridge between the two.  This is very similar to the movements in Chinese Qigong as well and was beautiful to watch.  Below are dancers in Konya.

I set out and walked along the flurry of fish, meat and vegetable markets on my way to the Acropolis.  Greek people selling fish  is something different than Seattle's Pike Place Market.  The fish merchants are much louder, much more passionate, competitive and a litte testy.  I didn't dare linger too long in this warehouse, people were serious about their purchases and I didn't want to end up smelling like fish for the rest of the day. 

The Acropolis so far has been the highlight of my trip-- It's set so high up above the city and the tall, beveled pillars seem to reach to the heavens and proclaim strength and dominance.  I'm sure the goddess Athena was pleased with this structure.  The Parthenon, was majestic and trully amazing to have survived 2500 years with wars and earthquakes. 

(the Parthenon and it's amazing marble columns)

(The arch by the Olympic Park with the Acropolis in the background)

I walked all around to various monuments around the Acropolis and visited Socrates cave (where he died).  There were two other men who were philosophers like me, and we commented how we always had wanted to visit Socrates cave and here we were!  We took pictures to commemorate our dream coming true. 

I relished every archeological site I saw-- the Odeum (300 b.c.), this large theatre where Renee Fleming is performing in July!  I'm tempted to come back for that, believe me-- but I think I'll just have to imagine it.  It's the most amazing venue for Opera you could imagine-- I think 3500 -5000 people can sit and it's outdoors (it used to a roof originally-- imagine that.)

The other highlight of my day at the Acropolis was running into a woman on my way home to my hotel who was an archeologist. 

Sorry for the blip here--- i figured how to recover a little of the text I lost... yippee.

Anyway, I've got to close here and get to the hotsprings before too late.

Love to you all-- especially J.F.  -- did you find yourself in this?  I hope you write me, my friend-- you are my muse for writing in this trip as well as a whole bunch of you who I will mention from time to time...  A.W.- thanks for the healing remedies, they are wonderful.  And much love to J.T. and N.D. for everything, give Miss P a squeeze from me. 

Adio!

I just wrote for almost an hour and the internet cafe cut me off and I lost everything I wrote to you!  Such is life, like a sand castle gone with one big wave before the photo could save it. 

As I am learning with these travels, don't get too attached to plans.

I had a fabulous time in Athens.  A lovely hotel at 50 Euros which is about as cheap as a nice hotel can be in the heart of the city (15 minutes to the big archeological Museum and 15 minutes to the Acropolis and Plaka).  A hostel is about 15, but is a sleepless night and I'm glad to have had the modest hotel with big breakfast and rich, dark Greek coffee.

(Annie at the Parthenon)

The first day I arrived in Athens, I went to the museum which was much larger than I expected and thought 3 hours would be enough but there were 3 floors and many, many rooms.  Not as daunting as the Louvre, but I walked around in astonishment at the level of quality of artistry the sculptures and painted pots had.  Red pots that were 9 feet tall and painted with all kinds of spectacular scenes of gods and goddesses on them. 

The sculptures were much more refined than the Roman sculptures I've seen before.  300 to 500 BC, pretty amazing tools they used, coins, weights, horse bridles and armour, not to mention extensive written language.  I had no idea how incredibly rich the culture and civilization had been and seeing the artifacts made me wonder why we don't have this level of artistry today in our culture-- sculpture and architecture doesn't compare to what they had 2500 years ago. 

Then, there are all the sculptures honoring the athletes.  Gorgeous, gorgeous athletes.  What happened to this athletic culture?  Sure, we still have the Olympics, but these gods and goddesses were really in great shape and somehow inspired everyone to rise to their highest potential.  I felt very inspired and awed after leaving this museum.  

I hurried to get to the Acropolis before they closed and in the process got quite lost, which was interesting in itself.  Neighborhoods that seldom see blond tourists like me.  Before long, I asked a nice man where I was (other than Athens!) and he guided me in the direction of the Acropolis.  Kind of embarrassing really, since the Acropolis is placed high up and a hill and most of the time if you look up, you can find it!  But the good thing about this man was I asked him for a recommendation to a really good but affordable place to eat. He told me of a place in the Plaka near the Acropolis and after walking to the Acropolis and arriving 1 minute too late with very sore feet, I thought, "OH well, maybe I'll see the Acropolis tomorrow then and explore this Plaka."

Which is what I did, waiting to eat dinner until 8:30 or 9 when everyone else eats here.  I found the restaurant (taverna), sat outside near some lovely Italian men,  and had the most exquisite lamb with melted feta and potatoes and mystery sauce that made me chew slowly to savour each moment. 

I'll post this now just in case the system shuts down again....