A year at Sahintepe did not mean a year of sitting in a dormitory room feeling sorry for yourself--unless that's what you wanted to do!

We did a lot of sightseeing the year I was there, from a road trip to Troy of Trojan Horse fame to the Virgin Mary's House and the excavated city of Ephesus where St. Paul preached.

Our location overlooked Lake Nicea and the city of Nicea where the Catholic Church's Council of Nicea was held in ancient times.  Several of us went there to explore the Roman aqueducts and the ruins of the Church of St. Sophia while also rappelling down into tunnels much like the catacombs of Rome.

Here are a few pictures from our sightseeing trips.

We were frequent shoppers in the bazaar of Bursa, an ancient city of over 500,000.  Under the blue marquee to the right is a jewelry store where GI's from Sahintepe had shopped for years while if you turned left at the telephone pole, you would walk into another shop where a carpet and towel dealer considered TUSLOG Detachment 150 one of his best customers!

On another trip, we went to Truva, the Turkish name for "Troy", where we saw the reconstructed Trojan Horse and the grave of Ajax.

I don't like heights and froze halfway up the ladder into the Trojan Horse replica.  My friend, Staff Sergeant Bob Boss, a b-i-g dude, growled behind me, "I didn't ride for hours so you could freeze up here--move! "  (I scrambled up the ladder!)

We also saw the ramp the horse was rolled up into the city and the underground hiding place next to a cistern where Helen of Troy's jewels were hidden during the siege of the city.

It didn't matter if you were Christian, Catholic, Jewish, atheist or what, nearly everyone who went on the supply run to Izmir got to see the Virgin Mary's house near Ephesus.  I got to go four times. (Wow, was I ever that young?)

Believe it or not, this site is also one of the holiest places in Islam.   We saw lots of Moslem families praying devoutly here alongside Christians and Catholics.  Sometimes our stops became quite emotional for some of our people.

One very religious person became very misty-eyed when he realized we were looking into the amphitheater where some of the Apostles and St. Paul preached years ago.

He didn't move for quite a while and even then was nearly silent for a long time after that day.  I knew the feeling--I felt the Virgin Mary's house was a very special place for me.