Yesterday evening, Lauren and I took a quick trip to the Basilica Cistern, or, as it’s called here, the Yerebatan Sarayı (sunken palace). The ancient cistern was constructed during the reign of Justinian I, by the labor of a supposed 7,000 slaves. It was used as a water filtration system for hundreds of years.

Today, the cistern is nearly empty of water, so tourists can walk around on platforms suspended over the water. The place is very leaky and damp – I got startled a few times when a big fat drop would fall on my face.

A big tourist draw to the cisterns are the large stone Medusa heads in the underground chamber. Historians don’t know where the heads came from, why they’re there, or why one of the heads is tilted on one side.

I couldn’t get a good photo of the whole place because it was so dark. I suppose back in the day, this place would have been incredibly eerie. But on our visit, with 100 kids underfoot, the place was booming with echoes. Regardless, it was cool to visit someplace that was so historic and preserved for generations upon generations.

As loyal readers already know, we spent Thursday through Saturday in the Hatay region of southern Turkey, which is in close proximity to the Syrian border. A growing number of refugee camps dot the dusty landscape of Hatay, and the cities, like Antakya, are increasingly full with those who have escaped violence in Syria.

I don’t want to tread on the stories I’m working on too much. Nearly 9,000 Syrians have reportedly perished at the hands of Bashar al-Assad’s forces since last May. People told me stories of brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children being slaughtered.

The ones who have survived say they will never be the same.  When we visited the Antakya State Hospital, we talked to people disfigured for life – who say they narrowly escaped death.

A refugee woman who helped us communicate at one of the camps took us to the hospital, where she often volunteers and brings food. The two men we visited suffered tremendous injury in Syria, one said he was injured by a bombing and one from being driven over by an Assad army vehicle during a demonstration. They have both been in the hospital for several months. They told us they were carried over the border mountains on the backs of Free Syrian Army members, then driven to the hospital in Antakya.

I will be writing more about these men and the other refugees I met this weekend, so be sure to look out for those pieces this week!

We went on a tour of the Bosphorus this afternoon with Dr. Ercan Balci’s class of University of Illinois students who are also in Istanbul this month. Though we had some soggy weather, we got to see the stretches of Bosphorus coast that are usually difficult to reach – Istanbul traffic can be very heavy!

Some of the architectural standouts we saw were the yalıs – pronounced “Yah-luhs” – which are waterside wooden residences. There are roughly 600 of these primarily 19-century homes, painted in any and every color. Dr. Balci explained that though many are owned by wealthy families, there are many that are shared by several owners. Since the homes are so expensive, owners will try to sell their share of a residence but face difficulty when these multiple owners squabble over who the home will be sold to and how much it will be sold for. This often forces people to remain living in these fabulously expensive homes while they’re living in relative poverty.

Another difficulty these homeowners face is in the upkeep. Since many of the homes are considered to be historic buildings by the country, there are laws about how the homes must be remodeled and restored. Since these particular restorations are often quite expensive and unaffordable, some of the homes fall into disrepair.