Twelth Post From Türkiye: Bolu and Gordion

Merhaba. My name is Jack and I will be your guest blogger today. My lovely wife apparently got tired of me hounding her to finish blog posts, b/c she told me to take care of blogging about these adventures myself. It could also have to do with the fact that she didn't participate in either of these trips. Anyway, I digress. In following Merry's blogging method, I am listening to baglama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba%C4%9Flama) virtuoso and Turkish folk musician Al Ekbar Cicek as I write.

A month or so ago I went camping with some guys from work. My friend Mert (whose name means "strong" and "manly" in Turkish) has a friend who works for the local municipality up near Bolu, who hooked us up with a cabin in the Koroglu Mountains. These mountains are the watershed between the Anatolian Plateau (a high desert like the inter-mountain west in the U.S.) and the Black Sea. Due to this weird climatic mix, the forest in the region is a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees, with lots of moss and all kinds of fungus.Like much of the landscape in Turkey, it reminded me of home. 

(Left to Right) Cody (a friend from work, from Alaska/Montana), Mert, Mert's friend, and Mert's nephew.

I didn't expect to be eating hot dogs (the whole pork thing, and whatnot) but I wasn't sure what the fare would be for a camping trip. Well, if I had given it five minutes thought I would have remembered that hospitality is sacred to Turks, and that good food=good times. Before we headed out of Ankara Mert stopped and bought enough food to feed ten men for ten days: steak, sausage, eggs, chicken, bread, cheese, olives, multiple kinds of fruit, and cookies, in addition to traditional winter-time soup, and stuffed eggplant that his mom had made. The man was relentless in feeding us. He made me eat steak that night until I thought I was going to puke, then again the next day. Oh yeah, he also had to acquire much raki (anise-flavored liquor, beer, tea, cigarettes...). Luckily we had already talked a lot about how I don't drink alcohol. He just had to focus all his alco-hospitality on Cody. 

  

Our Cozy Cabin

An ingeneous, very Turkish, stove, that burns hazelnut husks. the husks go into a hopper that funnels them down into the stove.

Forest near Bolu

Here's Mert displaying his 9mm marksmanship skills. We became friends because we ended up talking about guns, hunting, etc. at work one day. He also brought his 12-gauge. We didn't have any clay pigeons, so we took turns throwing junk (we found an old CD, a clay roof tile, and old teapot) into the air for each other to shoot. All were impressed that I hit the CD when only the edge was facing me. Like all good Turks, Mert did his conscript service in the Turkish military. When we went for a hike the first night he said it reminded him of his days doing 40-km night hikes in the southeast, though I wonder if he smoked as many cigarettes then. Whether he's speaking English or Turkish, he begins every sentence with the phrase "kardesim," ("my friend").   

An action shot of me shooting at, and missing, a bottle. I told them beforehand that I can't hit nothin' with no handgun.

Mossy and Foresty

The next week, when I got the day off for Veteran's Day, I wanted to take our newly-arrived car on a road trip to nearby Gordion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordium). Merry wasn't feeling very well, so I loomed up the car with Diet Dr. Pepper, throwed Truman in the back, and hit the road. Gordion was the capital of ancient Phrygia (a kingdom of Indo-European-speaking people who were allies with the Trojans) during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. 

 

A Phrygian Vase with a Centaur

The kings of Phrygia were famous for building tumuli, or wooden tombs covered with man-made earth mounds. The one pictured below belonged to King Midas of golden-touch/ass's ears fame.

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Trum in the tunnel archaeologists cut into the center of Midas' tomb.

It may not look like much, but that's the oldest extant wooden structure in Anatolia and, perhaps, the world (forget the metal supports holding it together).

You see! Look at that wood!

Near to the tomb is the old acropolis of Gordion. It sits on a man-made hill that sticks up much higher than the surrounding plain. 

Main gate of Gordion. Too bad the scaffolding was in the way.

See all those mounds behind Trum? They are un-excavated tumuli.

The Acropolis

Besides a small group of tourists, Trum and I were the only people there. We picked up all kinds of amazing potsherds (Trum found one that was clearly the lip from a big gray pot. It could have been 2,500 years old). But, being good culturally/historically-conscious folk, we put 'em right back down, so that some grad student/archaeologist can find them in the future.

Eleventh Post From Türkiye: Denmark

Famous musician from Denmark that I listened to to get in the spirit to write this post: Lars Ulrich (Metallica). That's right, I listened to a drum solo on youtube. I didn't need to listen to more, I was immersed in Metallica back when I worked in a restaurant and the cooks would crank it while we prepped to open. Did I ever tell you I had a dream that I was engaged to Lars Ulrich? I remember that I was super happy in the dream because he was rich and I could spend as much as I wanted on the wedding. Does this mean I'm shallow/materialist at heart? Probably. Anyway, we took the overnight ferry from Norway to Denmark. It was fun and we went to a super fancy buffet dinner. It was crazy because the boat was totally rocking because of the stormy seas and we were stumbling around but the Scandinavians acted like nothing was happening and continued on with their dinning experience. Fun times with a cheese platter!

We woke up and drove off the boat and straight to ...

LEGOLAND!!!

There was much joy and rejoicing by the Rowes while experiencing the delights of Legoland. It was a beautiful day, nice and cool and the park was not too busy. We had a great time.

We headed from there through the lovely countryside to Jelling to see the rune-stones & burial mounds.

The Jelling stones are massive carved rune-tones from the 10th century.

It was so gorgeous there and peaceful! The stones are really cool.

We stayed the night in Odense (birth place of :Hans Christian Andersen) in a beautiful bed and breakfast.

In the morning we discovered this crazy play area in the square by our B&B.

We drove from Odense to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. They have several ships that have been restored and a lot of interactive stuff as well as workshops where they build replica boats and make sails using the Viking methods.

 We headed out from there to Copenhagen.

We started right off with a boat tour of the canals.

 On the tour we went by the Little Mermaid,

 and the Royal Palace, among other things.

After the tour we walked around a bit to see a few things.

Town Hall

The Lur Blowers.

Hans Christian Andersen sculpture

 

Spent some time, taking goofy photos.

The next day we did a walking tour and started off on the pedestrian street 

Strøget with some chocolaty churros.

 Saw some of the beautiful half-timbered buildings in the back streets.

 Found that you can see jellyfish as well as bikes in the canals.

Stopped in St. Peter's church and the youth choir was singing. There were just a few of them but the acoustics in that old church amplified them beautifully. It was wonderful.

Then we went to the Church of Our Lady to see the original Christus. We were there during their services and sat in the back. We couldn't understand the words but some of the hymns were familiar and the music and surroundings were beautiful. It is a beautiful church and beside the Christus the sides are lined with statues of the 12 apostles. It was a special experience being there.

We also spent an evening at Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli is a famous amusement park, it opened on 15 August 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world. It was so fun and the old rides are so well maintained and the whole park is just beautiful! We loved it!

  The next day was our last (sad) but we got in a few sights before our flight. 

 Frederiksborg Castle

Everybody should have a throne made of Ivory & a throne made of Silver.

This is probably my favorite picture from the trip. This guy looked like a crazy 70's Muppet. The extreme bluriness also brings me joy. He was the coolest.

So glad we went to Scandinavia!