The Penn Stater Magazine

On the Road Again, in Turkey

May 2, 2011 at 3:34 pm Tina Hay Leave a comment

We had to leave Istanbul behind this morning and headed south toward the Aegean Coast. This Legendary Turkey trip will take us to quite a few different cities and towns and something like six different hotels over the course of the two-plus weeks that we’re over here.

As we got on the bus this morning, we got word about the special-forces operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. Already we’ve gotten an email or two from friends or family asking if we’re safe, and we feel like we are safe.

Turkey is definitely close to the Middle East—it borders both Iran and Iraq on its eastern side—but we’re on the western side of the country, which feels like a world away. The country on the whole is pretty peaceful, has managed to stay out of the fray on a lot of matters, and is very welcoming of tourists from the U.S. and elsewhere.

Incidentally, while something like 99 percent of the people in Turkey are Muslim, it’s actually a secular country: The separation of mosque and state is extremely important here. It’s something that goes back to the founding of the country in 1923, and it’s something the people are very proud of.

Someone back home asked what the reaction of the local people is to the news, and to be honest, we have no idea. We haven’t seen a local newspaper—and wouldn’t be able to read it if we had! The locals might be talking about it among themselves, but I would have no way of knowing, given that my Turkish vocabulary still numbers in the single digits.

Anyway, our day today involved a lot of time on the bus, with a stop at Gallipoli, to visit the ANZAC cemetery there, lunch at a restaurant in the town of Eceabat, and a visit to the ruins of ancient Troy. More on all of that another day—we’re all pretty beat tonight. In the meantime, I did upload a bunch more photos from Istanbul to the Alumni Association’s Facebook page, so check ‘em out there.

Oh, and the photo at the top of the page here is from the town of Canakkale, a ferry ride away from the Gallipoli Peninsula and about 20 miles from the ruins of Troy. If you saw the 2004 movie Troy (with Brad Pitt), you may recognize that horse. Gökhan, our tour director, was telling us that the  movie wasn’t filmed anywhere near the ruins of Troy—it was filmed in Mexico—and the people of Canakkale were a little miffed about that. So the producers of the movie donated the horse to Canakkale as a sort of peace offering, I guess, and there it sits today, available for tourists to snap its picture.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: Alumni Association. Tags: Brad Pitt, Canakkale, Eceabat, Galliipoli, Legendary Turkey, Osama Bin Laden.