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Gallipoli, Alexandria, and Some Syrians

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“Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings because Britain made Australia do it.” For those who haven’t read it, that is an outtake from a short history lesson on WWI titled “If WWI Were a Bar Fight.” It actually does an amazing job of explaining the order of events, and in an amusing sort of way giving context to the stupidity of the whole war. However, while it puts many things in context, without further reading it fails to impress the cost of any given bar brawl “punch.” In the context of Gallipoli that punch was 500,000 casualties: 250,000 (46,000 dead) Allied and 250,000 (65,000 dead) Ottoman. While it resulted in an Ottoman victory, the entire Ottoman Army at the time only numbered 315,000; this doesn’t leave much of an army to protect what was once one of the greatest empires in the world. 8yrs later the Ottoman Empire would fall to rebellion and the new Turkish Republic was founded under Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk, who was ironically the Ottoman hero of Gallipoli). But that’s enough history for the moment. We spent the better part of Friday touring ANZAC Cove (ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps). There’s not much left to see of course; There are a few places where trenches are still visible, but otherwise it’s cemeteries and monuments to the devastation.

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Even though we were there for WWI history, my first picture is really from a WWII bunker (Turkey never actually saw combat in WWII).

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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Ode from “For the Fallen”, by Laurence Binyon, 1914.

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Flower garden next to one of the many Allied cemeteries.

Once we had finished touring ANZAC Cove, we took a ferry across the Dardanelles to spend the night in Çanakkule. We booked a pension (small apartment) which turned out amazing. We had a stove, washing machine, separate bedrooms, and a deck where we could sip wine. Sorry, no pictures as I was too busy smoking my pipe and furiously editing pictures!

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Lunch the next day however was a photo worthy event. Quick stop at a grocery store had us anxious to find the perfect beach to make lunch, which didn’t take long.

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Kebobs cooked in the Jetboil…not an optimal situation, but it ended in awesomeness! (Photo’s taken by James)

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Full bellies with an amazing view.

We made a quick detour past Troy (yes, the Troy of Homer’s Trojan War and it’s famous wooden horse) before making an actual stop to walk around Alexandria Troas which is freely accessible from the roadside.

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For barely being a note on the map with no real tourist advertising, it’s actually kind of a cool place to visit, especially since no one else was around!

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Ust cursing me thinking, “you brought me out here, then told me there are TICKS in the grass and now you make me STAND HERE!?”

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We then continued to Izmir, with the plan of spending the night to get an early start for Ephesus. We had looked up a place that had some good reviews and was close to numerous tourist attractions in old town. Upon arrival however, the neighborhood looked a fair bit rougher than the reviews had led us to believe. We stayed anyway, and soon learned that the neighborhood was largely occupied by Syrian Refuges. Being that I don’t speak a work of Arabic, I couldn’t hardly carry on a conversation with any of them, but walking around the neighborhood I found them to be quite pleasant and friendly.

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I took some pictures of the streets and headed back to the hotel for dinner. Sadly, that good feeling was pretty well dampened at 1am when a group of Syrian men decided it was their duty to set straight the morals of the American’s as we were all three sharing a room. The hotel staff ran them off, but there was a tense time with Ust hiding in the bathroom while the men demanded in broken english (they don’t speak Turkish) to know what room we were staying in. They finally left and I thankfully didn’t have to find out how hard it would be to hold a doorway with a broken bottle. We opted to skip breakfast in the hotel, and I went to get the car from the carpark while James and Ust waited in the lobby. I would have made it to the car free and clear, but I was stopped by a Syrian running a coffee shop down the street. What did he want? Company watching a 1954 Arab movie on his phone. What I wouldn’t give to speak Arabic so I could have chatted with this guy! Good feeling is back, but we are being much more careful about having a hotel around refuges since we are all continuing to share a room to make things cheaper.

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