Cappadocia!

Hey everyone! I made it safely to Cappadocia, although I got here pretty late and I had to wake up earlier than usual (ohhh 7:45 poor me!). Today was a full day but it was fun. There were 5 older, married couples on the day's tour, so I was certainly the odd one out. I think I blew it 5 minutes into the bus ride when the tour guide was asking if we had any claustrophobia, blood pressure, heart attack, asthma problems etc (because we were going to go to the underground cities) and I responded, No, I'm young. The average age of the 10 others was probably 55 so they got a kick out of that. That was the line for the rest of the day. Also I tend to use the restroom about 5x more often than the normal human being so I was forever trotting off to go somewhere, so anytime someone saw a toilet they would eagerly point it out to me. The group was fun though - upbeat, cheesy, funny, and kind - qualities you want on a tour. Tomorrow it will just be 5 of us doing more Cappadocia things and then on Monday 1 other couple (I met them today, I think we'll get along well) and I will set off to Southeastern Turkey!
Here are some pictures from today, you might recognize some from when I came here 2 years ago - sorry!

So Cappadocia (in central Turkey) is a pretty crazy place with all sorts of interesting geological and man made feats. Some volcanic eruptions created these interesting rock formations, which people many centuries ago carved out and made into churches (and also homes). You can still see some of the frescoes in these churches, even though they are from the 13th century and they stopped being used in the 17th century.



An example of a church that's been carved out. Not a great example, I wish I took pictures of others.









The ceiling in one of them.

Now some cool geography:









We also visited an underground city - Kaymakli - which was dug out hundreds of years ago when there were more wars here and people would hide in there for safety. Kaymakli could hold up to 6,000 people! We couldn't wander through the entirety because some of the floors had collapsed but it was really fun crawling through tunnels, peeking in little windows and using your imagination to see how people would have lived there. It's hard to capture in a photo, sorry! You'll just have to go visit it!



This was the church.



They also had wineries. There was a big place for people to stamp on the grapes and then little holes and "buckets" to catch the liquid. Pretty cool!



There were HUGE rolling stones which could be used to blog entrances from possible invaders. Luckily they dug out ventilation shafts so they didn't suffocate.