Trekking Through Turkey: Thursday, March 13

Asklepieon's theater

At sunrise the ethereal sound of the muezzim's call to prayer woke me up. Ahmad Paarlberg, a Muslim, later shared his thoughts and experience from visiting the Sufi mosque during evening prayer.

"It was different from the Sunni branch of Islam that I grew up with," said the Wabash junior from Crown Point, IN. "I sat down and listened. They were reading from the Koran with the Imam. . ..submitting to god in a different way than I was brought up. He knew Arabic and I tried to communicate with hand gestures and the little Arabic that I knew. They were extremely friendly."

Bryan Gonzalez and Ron Kelsey at Asklepieon's theater

Aelius Aristides, an ancient hypochondriac and Sophist, was a famous speaker who spent time at the Asklepieon, part hospital and part Allen Athletics Center. This building is located in Pergamum and we visited it early Thursday morning. When our guide, Sue Ellen, asked the group to name some famous visitors, the entire group chimed his name in unison; they had read his translated works a week before leaving for Turkey. A bit later, Jim Young read one of Aristides' orations in the original Greek while standing on the stage of the Asklepieon's theater.

It's nine hours to Istanbul, where we'll leave the continent of Asia for Europe via a ferry across the Sea of Marmara. As we drive along, the guys are planning their excursions around Istanbul. It's a massive city; we drove for two hours, fighting rush hour traffic across the Bosphorus Bridge. The students are palpably excited at the prospect of an evening out in this metropolis of five million people. There is talk of bars and discos and dancing until the morning call to prayer.

Gary Moore at Asklepieon's theater

Sue Ellen turns on the microphone, "Istanbul is a wonderful city, but I'll share some warnings. Take care with your wallets. There are numerous prostitutes and transvestites. Don't drink the water, don't even brush your teeth with it. Have fun, be careful."

Warnings I think the students will heed as they make their way through this historic and cosmopolitan city.