Tourkey

Hello everyone,
Anneke and I just had a fantastic time in Turkey. When we were in Istanbul we realized how expensive it was so we decided to make a made dash for the border before we ran out of money. We did some research and discovered that the cheapest and fastest way to get through turkey while still seeing things was the three day tour through epheses and Cappadocia. Both were absolutely beautiful. As much as we are not really tour people we tried to make the best out of it. We learned alot and met some really fantastic people. We also noticed how hard it would be to see cappadocia on our own because it is so big. We had plenty of free time to explore on our own, which was also really nice. One evening we were wondering around Selcuk and we ran into a man who introduced him self to us. We sat down with him and made small talk. After a while he walk away for a seconded, picked of a dirty plastic cup from the ground near by, poored some turkish wine into it and offered it to us. We both politely sipped from the cup once and said thank you. Once we finished chatting we went on our way. We were both slightly concerned for our immune systems but it's been about 4 days now and we're ok. We have really had the opportunity to experience middle eastern hospitality at it's best and we are very greatful for it. We are very excited that we still have a month and a half here. It's about 16 days until we meet up with nick gamble in beirut, which is also very exciting. We have alot to look forward to.
Anneke and I are on our own now and have just arrived in Aleppo today. The border crossing only took one hour. We already tell all of the differences between Turkey and Syria. First of all there is alot more arabic it's also alot dustier and smokier. We just spend our afternoon wandering around the souqes and exploring the old city. We will probably only spend two nights here before we head to Damascus.