Another day, another durum

I apologize in advance for any mistakes and general disjointedness in this post. They let me have the "english" keyboard at the internet cafe and I can't remember where all of the keys are now that I have become accustomed to the turkish placement.

We continue to explore some of the culture aspects of the city. Yesterday we went to the archeology museum. It is pretty strange to think that this area has been part of ancient greece, rome, the byzantine and ottoman empires. This museum puts the royal bc to shame. The weird thing is that there were no people and many security guards. Everytime that we entered a new room, a guard would get up from his chair by the radiator, put down his book and mosey on over. Sometimes, a guard would come by and turn on the lights if we entered a particularly unused area. The strangest artifact was a two ton marble coffin covered in carvings. This in itself is not strange. The weird part to me was one particular carving, depicting a heated battle. Again, not strange in and of itself. Ok, here is the interesting part. A man in one corner of the sarcophogus is stabbing another in the neck. Brutal and all but..... Did I mention that the man doing the stabbing is completely naked accept for a helmet and the man being stabbed is totally clothed? Who goes into battle with no clothes? Better question, who goes in to battle without any clothes, but on the way out the door figures "hey, I should wear a hat or I might get a cold?".

Anyhow, just thought that I would leave you all with that image. Next week we are planning on visiting the asian side of the city, and hopefully moving further south for at least a few days. Trying to get a sense of the country as a whole, rather than just relying on the grandness of Istanbul to represent a whole nation.

Will