Factoids about Turkey:

. Today if you see a bottle (a Coke bottle, for instance) atop a home as you drive through the Turkish countryside, it means “we have a daughter eligible for marriage.” Would-be suitors cast stones at these bottles and try to break them.

. Turks are not Arabs. In general Arabs view Turks as liberals and consequently cannot stand them.

. The Turkish language is a lot like Finnish, Norwegian, and Japanese, but because of the Arabic alphabet, people have assumed it’s like Arabic.

. Turkey has had three military takeovers. In the 19th century Turkey came under a strong French influence. (Often while in Turkey, I felt like I was in France.)

. Only about one-fourth of the Turkish people want to return to the more fundamentalist Islamic state in which women had no rights and converts to Christianity were killed. Today converts are protected by law. The pro-fundy folks currently receive money from Iran and Saudi Arabia.

. About two percent of the population of Turkey consider themselves Christians. Occasionally as you travel through Turkey, you will find a church. But mostly you see minarets.

. In biblical times what we know today as Western Turkey was called “Asia.” The European and Asian continents nearly touch, with only The Bosphorus, or Istanbul Strait, separating them. The European side is Thrace; the Asian part is Anatolia.

. Turkey has seven time zones.

. Nuts are a major export, especially hazelnuts and pistachios. And from Izmir to the Dardanelles, a traveler sees miles and miles of olive trees.

. Turkey also has miles and miles and miles of beautiful coastland overlooking indigo waters.

. Hagia Sophia (or the Church of “Holy Wisdom”; Turkish: Ayasofya) was originally a patriarchal basilica. Sophia is not the name of a saint. It’s the word for wisdom in Greek, and "Holy Wisdom" is a reference to Jesus Christ. The church became a mosque in the 15th century, and today it stands as a museum in Istanbul.