Getting around the city

I had the most amazing weekend!!!!!!!  We were given a private tour of the city of Gaziantep.  I felt very lucky this weekend to have the opportunity to be in this city for the next 9 months.  I am walking on the land where so much history was made.  We went to the Gaziantep Mosaic Museum (the largest in the world).  All I can say is breathtaking. These works of art were thousands and thousands of years old and most of them in perfect condition.  It almost seemed like time stood still with these artifacts.  How amazing that such beautiful works of art were created by hand and created by placing tiny little pieces of till down one at a time. 
We also went to this open market bazaar.  You felt like you were walking down streets that time didn't seem to take over.   Men and women hand making silk clothes and shoes.  Men hand carving everything you can imagine out of wood.  Handmade mother of pearl that was amazing to look at.  There was a trunk that is one piece that I want to bring home with me.  Cooper cooking tools and pots.  Handmade chess boards, jewelry that I could buy one of each and not have enough days left in my life to wear.   If you can imagine it it is made there.  The spices...........oh my goodness the spices.  Truly a cooks dream.  The handmade candies and sweets, baklava around every corner, roasted pistachios that we have never experienced unless we have eaten them fresh from Gaziantep.  There is so much to see and take in, I could go every weekend for my 9 months hear and always find something that you didn't see the last time.  I can assure that my family and friends will be getting so many amazing gifts from me this year.  :) There were moments when I felt like I traveled back in time.  There are parts of the city that are new and metropolitan but sections of the city have really held onto and preserved its past. 
We had pistachio coffee (which I recommend to everybody who loves coffee) in a 13th century inn.  It was breathtaking.  I really felt like I had been sent back in time.  It seems like people here actually take time to enjoy life and the people around them.  You can see people sitting in the park drinking tea.  They aren't rushing here and there.  They are just living and enjoying what they are living for.  I think I have let my job consume my life for the past 3 years and forgot to how to just enjoy the beauty around me.    I wish that everybody had the opportunity to visit another country and really experience the culture there.  I am so grateful that I have been given this chance to go on this adventure and I have promised myself that I will not let myself waste one second of my time here.