Week 28: Konya (posted by Eliza)

 

On Sunday, January 11, we drove from Safranbolu to Konya. When Google Maps took us off the main road, it started snowing a lot, dad claimed it was a blizzard, but it was only a snowstorm. A while later, we came across Anatolian plain where there was no snow and no trees. 

When we arrived at the AirBnB, we went out for dinner that served Konya's special dish: etliekmek. It's kind of like pizza but long instead of round. They also don't use tomato sauce.

We had a good night's sleep and in the morning we went on a walking tour with a guide named Mirac. He took us to a famous dervish school founded by the poet name Rumi in the 1200s. So, that was pretty cool. There is a museum there, where we saw where Rumi was buried. We also saw a chest which contains a strand of the Prophet Muhammed's beard.

It was very rainy and cold, but Mirac said that this was "good weather" compared to what they usually had. We visited more mosques built by the Ottoman's and even a cat's tomb that a dervish built in the 1200s. Dad met a high school basketball team -- one of the players said that his cousin is Alperen Sengun.

The next night, we had whirling dervishes to think about. A whirling dervish is someone who spins around in religious ceremony to help them achieve enlightenment, or something like that. It was quite boring, to be honest, but it was definitely worth seeing. They were spinning for like fifteen or twenty minutes and when I tried to spin for thirty seconds I couldn't do it.

The last day in Konya, Anne, Mom, and I went to a science museum. It was so interactive and so fun. I learned more science at that museum than I have on the whole year abroad so far. My favorite part was the last part where they had a very big collection of legos. We stayed at the legos for like an hour.