Saturday, April 30, 2011

Fun Facts about Turkey

1)Turkey has hundreds beaches and marinas which have the "Blue Flag" (A European award for the best clean water) on the Mediterranean and Aegean.

2) Turkey has more mosques per capita than any other country.

3) Turks eat fresh baked bread with every meal.

4) Although 99% of Turks are Muslim, Turkey has a rich Christian heritage.

5) Most Turks drink 10 or more cups of tea a day.

6) Turkish homes have one room containing all their most beautiful furnishings. They only go in it when special guests arrive.

7) Arranged marriages are very common in Turkey.

8) Three percent of Turkey is in Europe. The other 97% is in Asia. It's the only country in the world that sits on two continents and has been the capital of three great empires, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman for more than 2000 years. (Note: My family has been in Turkey since the late 1400's)

9) Turkish is an agglutinative language, meaning that base words get lots of affixes and suffixes, making them longer and longer. For example, the sentence, "I will be able to come" in Turkish is only one word with lots of endings added to it, gelebilicegim. Supposedly the longest word in Turkish is: Cekoslovakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz, meaning, "You are said to be one of those that we couldn't manage to convert to a Czechoslovak."

10) The Turkish word for lion is aslan (Just like the lion in the Narnia movie.)




11) Jelly beans got started as an American form of Turkish Delight.

12) Turkey is bordered by eight countries and three seas.

13) Turks are very hospitable. It's not unusual for a perfect stranger to strike up a conversation with you, then invite you over for tea.

14) There are about 70 million people in Turkey. That's double the population of California.

15) Bob Dylan is of Turkish decent, and Dr. Oz (the Dr. that Oprah has on her show a lot) is Turkish.

16) Turkey is full of amazing Roman ruins.

17) Noah's ark landed on Mr. Ararat, which is in Turkey.

18) The first church ever built (St. Peter's Church in Antioch) is in Turkey. The seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation, in the Bible are all in Turkey.

19) Turks gave the Dutch their famous tulips.

20) Turks introduced coffee to Europe.

6 comments:

Vanessa said...

I went to a turkish tea place one time and it was amazing!! I wouldnt mind being invited over for some more of that tea!! :-)

Unknown said...

I love Turkey!I've been there in 2007 and noticed how hospitable Turkish people are:)And Turkish nature is so beautiful!!!

L said...

aw thank you so much for your lovely comments!.. yes, you definitely have to go back to Turkey for Istanbul and Cappadocia.. they're beyond words, beautiful.

P.S. Your Little Bacardi is such a cutie! i love, love, love animals :-)

Love, Victoria said...

i find stuff like this SO interesting!! i want to visit israel and egypt and so many places!! turkey sounds so beautiful!

MaviDeniz said...

Thanks Lorena, he's defnitely my little baby :)

Lovevictoriaa, I think you would love Israel, I was there a few years ago and saw Tel Aviv and Eliat, but unfortunatly I wasn't able to see Jerusalem. The day before my trip to that area there was a bus bombing so I had to cancel it :(. I hope to go back one day to see it.

Segments of Life said...

Turkey sounds amazing. Will definitely have to visit oneday! :D

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