Hello from Göreme

Hey folks.

Finally made it out of Urfa, and moved on to a place called Göreme via a tour of Mt. Nemrud. I'd put up some pictures, but right now I can't tell whether or not they turned out...it seems that I (or my camera) might've made some poor lighting decisions. I'll try to get some up some other time.

Things are going pretty well here - I feel like I'm settling into the traveling life a little more, aided by a number of people here who have done a lot of traveling and are rather experienced. The last couple of days have been pretty fun. I took some days off, then spent yesterday touring around a nearby valley. The rock formations here are incredible, and the landscape is pretty unreal. If you Google "Goreme" and go to the image search, you'll get some idea of what I'm talking about.

There are strange looking cones scattered everywhere, the result of large deposits of volcanic ash being unevenly eroded by rain and snow. People have hollowed them out for centuries and turned them into houses. This area used to be a sort of Christian holdout, and I saw a number of cave churches yesterday. I also toured an underground city, which is exactly what it sounds like - a place where around 5000 people used to live in times of emergency. The place is 8 levels deep and goes down about 300 feet. There was a small church in there, too, with a couple of crosses carved into the walls.

I'll be spending about two more weeks in Turkey, with five more days left in Göreme. From here I'll head out to Olympos. After Turkey I'll be going to Greece, and I'm hoping to be able to visit some cool places and possibly even stay in a monastery for a week or so. I'm looking forward to going to a place where Christianity hasn't been almost completely annhilated.

Further updates as events warrant, I suppose.