Pics From Turkey Part I--Amazing Views

So, my short trip to Turkey was a lot of fun, but it is good to be back home. I've been pleasantly surprised that the jet lag has already worn off--Thank you, God! I took more pictures than I can post here on my blog, but I'm going to share a few with you.
Here is the first thread of them (and in reverse order--sorry!)
These are some of the amazing views I saw.
The first few are ruins from the town of Ephesus (or just Efes if you're Turkish), which is the city the Biblical Book of Ephesians was written to.
The first pic was at the end of the little walking trail...a bunch of columns on either side...I was very impressed with how magnificent it all must have looked back in the day.





Yeah, sorry I couldn't flip the image sideways before I posted it! These are the remains of a massive library. The four statues in front represented four different virtues...wisdom, kindness, beauty, or something like that...? The first two look a little odd, but the second two are headless! Scary!
Lots of room in this theatre!
Ok, these next pics (including the one above) are from a town outside of Ephesus where the remains are for the church of John--the disciple who was in Jesus' inner circle, and who wrote the book of Revelation. This is the baptismal area...
This is the tomb where John is actually buried. That thing in the middle has a stone with his name on it. It is also believed that Jesus' mother, Mary, lived here last days round these parts too...
I just liked this shot. :)
These two pics are right around Istanbul. This is the famous Blue Mosque--so called because most of the painting inside is done up in blue. It was impressive, if not a little awkward for me to be a tourist at a mosque...
This one might actually be St. Sophia's, which is across the street from the blue mosque. It was a Christian church back in the day, but was then turned into a mosque. It still has amazing Byzantine sort of Christian paintings on some of the walls though....

More pics to follow in the coming days...