19 = 1

gotta  start out by saying HECK YEAH to Ben Spies. I knew he was gonna do good, but grabbing the pole and winning a race in his first weekend in World SBK??? the dude is an absolute beast. I obviously don't get to watch the races, but I watched the highlights on youtube. Holy crap, that yamaha sounds soooooo sick! 

*back to the regularly scheduled blog*

so I made it back this afternoon to Istanbul. Wasn't exactly a pleasant flight...but we made it. I'm gonna try and sort through all of my pictures and whatnot real quick and give ya an idea of what went down.

so the first day we mostly just walked around Mardin. It was so cool though because the entire city is built into a mountain/huge hill. Its probably around a 30 degree grade or more, so you can imagine how steep it was. The construction techniques are really unique there because of the large slope. All of the businesses/markets and houses are made with flat roofs so you can walk on them. here is a awesome shot I took, you can see how the houses kinda stack on each other.

You could pretty much walk around the city of rooftops if you wanted to. Speaking of which, here is the sheep I was playing with on a roof (but, the roof was a pseudo front yard of the family that lived there)

We had dinner at this little hole in the wall joint, and I had this meatball panini type thing that was sooo good. Then we came back to the police house and I mingled with the turkish girls haha. I tend to do that at all times :)

The next day we did much of the same, but got to visit a bunch of historical sites in and around Mardin. here are some pictures from that

this is a school from the 15th century. that pool was used at night for astronomy! how cool is that

looking out of a Christian church. amazing view

so this is my fav car that we don't have in America, the Fiat Punto....and I got to ride in one! it was awesome

And the last day we jumped on a bus and drove for quite a while and ended up in a ancient city called Dara. It was so cool though cause we drove straight through Mesopotamia, and at one point we could see the Syrian border. From what I understand, Dara is located really close to where two tectonic plates connect/collide. As you can see in the pictures below, it is pretty much built from little stones. Everything is built that way, and most of it was built without any mortar to hold the stones together...pretty cool. Ok, so the story goes, the shift of the plates started the great flood that Noahs Ark straight dominated. So, all of the little stones are a byproduct of that event. 

A little down the road, but I think it was still in Dara, was this ancient Christian burial site. It was built around 5600BC, and the entire thing was carved out of this huge rock/hill. It was so crazy, just thinking that somebody hand to do all this with their hands, and it is still standing today. here are some pics from that

panoramic of Dara

credit photoshop for adjusting the perspective....this is the burial site carved in the rock

and today, pretty much just travelled by bus and plane and ended up back in Istanbul. It was kinda weird though, it was actually sunny today. I hardly recognized the city...no joke. First thing I did was go and get me some Nesquick cereal, I was craving it all weekend haha. aiiiight, hope that helped to explain my trip a little bit! I'm gonna go unpack and get some sleep, I'm a little behind on it. Talk to you guys soon! miss ya

*ps*  sorry lindy and brent for getting cut off earlier. The school decided to just turn off the internet for no good reason. my bad