Spring Break

After 8 straight weeks of teaching with not so much as a half day, let alone a standardized test  (I never thought I would long for the CAHSEE) we had spring break!  Alex, a friend from Seattle, was visiting and we had planned to venture out into the Turkish country side. 

We were not off to an auspicious start when I got a text message just before flag ceremony.  You should know that I never carry my cell phone, I have it mostly for internet banking, and that I get an average of one text message a day from either my bank, credit card or the phone company.  I can't read any of these messages and I ignore them all.  So far I haven't overdrawn my account, had my credit card stolen or had phone service cut off, so I figure I am justified in continuing to ignore these messages.  The one that came after school on the Friday before spring break said it was from THY.  The T is for Turkish, the H for airport, and it doesn't matter what the Y is for, because I figured this was a message I ought to understand.  I handed the phone to a student.  She read "You have a reservation" ok, good so far, maybe this is just a flight confirmation text.  "is canceled" she continued.  What?  Turks are notorious for being helpful even when they cant be.  It is always best to ask 3 - 4 people for directions, but it is likely that the first person had no idea, but wanted to be helpful so gave you directions anyway.  It isn't intentionally misleading, it is just an overwhelming desire to be helpful.  I took the phone to a Turkish physics teacher and he confirmed what the student said and said I should call the phone number. 

This is easier said that done, first of all I hate making phone calls, ask anyone.  Second, I didn't know if they would know English, third, it is pouring rain and I get no cell reception inside the builiding, and pretty poor reception even outside it on campus, fourth, the bus we are supposed to get on to the airport leaves in 15 minutes and fifth, I hate making phone calls, but perhaps I mentioned that one already.

Standing in the doorway of the gym, I call.  The robot on the phone says something about proceeding in English, press 4.  No it wasn't 4.  Call again.  Ok, press 5.  Nope.  Third time is the charm, press 9.  Ok, I can hear the human much better than I could hear the robot. 
-I got a text message saying my flight was canceled and I am wondering what to do about it.
Do you have your confirmation number? 
-No, it is inside and I can't go inside or I will lose the call. 
Ok, I'll look you up by name and flight
- Great.  Heather Mellows, going to Izmir at 6pm tonight
Oh,  I can't look you up by name since your flight has been canceled.
-Yes, I know, that is why I called.
You'll have to get the confirmation number.
-Ok

I go inside, lose the call and start again.  At least this time I know which number to press and get through to an English speaking customer service person more quickly.
We have another flight to Izmir at 11pm
- Great, I am flying with Alex
Oh, that flight only has one seat, but you could fly at 7am, 8am, 9am or 10am tomorrow.
- (calculating what time we would have to get up to catch a morning flight without a free bus ride from campus.)  we'll fly at 9am.
Ok, I'll send you the confirmation email
- great.  Do you have any idea why the flight was canceled?
No.

Off the phone I go find Alex, who is waiting with his luggage at the bridge where we were supposed to get on a service bus with residential students to the airport.  I fill him in while we try to find the bus we were supposed to be on so they wouldn't wait for us.  We go back up to my office to regroup.  The night works out well, we leave our bags at Keeleys, hang out at Jack's a little bit and then head up the hill to pick up Marshall and go see The Hunger Games and then out to dinner. 

The next morning we are on a bus at 6:45 to Taxim and then on the Havatas to the airport for a one hour trip to Izmir.  They have a havatas at Izmir too and we took it into town.  I had looked up the route it took and I couldn't quite tell where it went, but I could find its terminus and I had google walking directions from there to our hotel, but since we passed the hotel just before a bus stop, the planning was moot. 

The view from our hotel room in Izmir

Alex has Hilton points from his credit card so he had booked the room using them and unfortunately had to forfeit the points for the first night even though we weren't there.  After a short rest we went out to see Izmir.

Day 1: Saturday 30 March, Izmir

The third largest city in Turkey after Istanbul and Ankara, Izmir is situated along the Agean Sea coast and has a pedestrian park/walk along the water which is very nice. We walked along it towards the archeology and ethnography museums. After a few wrong turns we found them. They were fine, but nothing like what we would see. On our way back to the hotel we bought simit (75karus) and then sat at a cafe for beverages and a couple games of backgammon.

Along the pedestrian walk/public park along the shore in Izmir.

part of a mosaic preserved in the Archeology museum in Izmir.

I'd hate to hear what ever shock he just got.

Street scene outside the museum in Izmir.

A very strange place for a cactus garden.

Our next stop was an old synagogue, which turned out to be beyond the museums and we really shouldn't have come all the way back to the hotel, but oh well. Alex wanted to take a taxi, but I dont really like taxis, and suggested we take the metro. We navigated that ok, buying a 3 trip pass and sharing it, but we had no idea how to get from the end of the metro to the synagogue, except that it was towards the sea. So we went west, down a big hill and through a really cool park that was several blocks long and had teraces for tables and gardeney bits. We got to the shore road and I told Alex I wasnt sure how we were going to get back, but that I wasn't going to climb that hill to get to the metro.

(Note: I started this blog two weeks ago and then got really busy. If there seems to be inconsistancy in the tone or pace, I am sure that is the cause.)

I am a sucker for the moon shot.

 We found the synagogue and it was in pretty bad shape. Alex claims not to be religous at all, but he seemed to take it badly that there was no space around the synagogue, where all the mosques had a little room. While it might be religous persecution, I think it is more likely a combination of city planning and age of the neighborhood. 

Bet Isreal Synagogue: It wasn't clear if it is still in use.

 Near by was the Asensor, a public elevator built by a local Jewish philanthropist who didn't want women or the elderly to have to climb up the hill every day. They even let able bodied yabanci use it for free. 

I wonder where the cafe at the top got its name?

The view from the top of the asansor, with good nearly sunset light. 

So we rode to the top, took pictures and then returned to the shore road to walk home to the hotel. It got pretty cold afer the sun set so we didn't want to eat at one of the outdoor cafes. We went instead to a resturant which sold kofte by the kilo. When it was finally explained that a portion was only about 200 grams, the prices were much more reasonable. 

I couldn't quite explain to Alex what I wanted in this shot, but now I have something like it on three continents (not including North America)

Day 2: Sunday 1 April: Sirince

We got up leisurely and Alex went down to breakfast, which ended up being very expensive and I ate a banana I had brought with me.  We thought the havatas came every half an hour so we went out to meet it at 9:45 for the 10am ride to the airport.  It turned out to come once an hour on the half hour, so we just missed it and had a long wait. 

The Turkish equivalent of Mt. Rushmore?  on the way to the Izmir airport.

Back at the airport we found the rental car booths but couldn't find the company we had arranged with.  I even tried calling the number we had, but I got beeps which sounded like a fax machine so hung up.  We started going down the line of well known companies but all the ones we had heard of had no cars available.  Eventually there was a Turkish company that did and they ended up renting us a car that was 5TL less per day than the one we were supposedly getting a deal from.  I asked about the tolls and they offered to rent us a transponder, but I said I had a card, would that work?  They supposed it would and we finished up the paperwork.  They rent cars empty in Turkey, rather than full, so the game is to try to return it empty as well.  It also meant that we couldn't put off the challenge of putting gas in it.  They also bring the car right to you in the departures pick up area, so you take the car they bring and there isn't really time to check it out to make sure it is in the condition they say it is.  I was happy to let Alex take the first shift in the drivers seat and he successfully navigated out of the airport and to the gas station, strategically positioned for exactly this reason.  It turned out that if you pay with cash, you pay the guy, if you use a card, you go in.  Fortunately Alex had enough cash and he filled up the car with 183TL worth of gas.  In case you have forgotten the $ - TL conversion, this is almost exactly $100, for a small car which probably has an 11 gallon tank.  Gas is very expensive here, when you convert to $/gallon is is over $17.  And yet people still drive?!? 

Anyway, that challenge tackled, we were on the road. We had google map directions, an atlas and a paragraph written by Charlotte, whose cottage we were staying in to guide us to Sirince. We had arranged to get to the cottage between noon and 1 where Aysel, the caretaker, would be waiting for us. We didn't really have any major wrong turns, but there was signifigant doubt as the signage was spotty, even google maps gave up and started just telling us to turn left and right after so long since there weren't even names for the roads let alone signs for them. We found Selcuk ok, and the turn off for Sirince and were making our way up the mountain when Charlotte called saying the car rental guy wondered where we were. I told her the story and she didn't seem too concerned. I hope we didn't cause her to lose face with this guy, since they clearly work with each other from time to time.

The town of Sirince, known for fruit wine and olive oil.

There is a Sunday market in Sirince during the tourist season so we had been warned not to even try to drive into the city but to pay to park at the edge and walk in. This was good advice since the place was crawling with Germans and there is no way we would have been able to find our way in the car. We paid the 3 TL for an indefinate amount of time, shouldered our bags and hiked in. Following Charlottes directions we found Olive House with little difficulty and it was gorgeous. Aysel was there to greet us and she had a fire going. We signed what we needed to sign and took a look around before heading back into town to find lunch.

Our house for two nights.

We had a nice lunch outisde a family run resturant which made gozleme to order. I hadn't had one of these giant tortillas before, but after seeing other people order them, I got one with sugar and lemon for dessert. A new favorite. After lunch we browsed the Sunday market and visited the church of John the Baptist.

The church of St. John the Baptist in Sirince

Yeah for notices in English!

Not bad for a couple hundred years old fresco.

A tower built to protest idiocy in government

 Alex bought a few gifts and I bought some socks, knowing that I had very little cash and unable to find a bank in town. In the afternoon we hiked up to a watch tower we could see above the town.  It seemed to be on the grounds of an inn, but there was a big sign on it saying:

Could you resist going up in a tower with this on its door?

Very pleasent.

so we went in and up.  It was eminately pleasent at the top, with couches and a great breeze.  I could have stayed there much longer except there were other people who seemed to be hovering to come up and I hadn't brought a book.  Back to the house, where Alex took a nap and I finished The Marriage Plot by Jefferey Eugenedies and started Atonement, which I found on the bedside table in my room.  At about 8, I woke Alex up and we went out to dinner.  After dinner we played more backgammon and then we went to bed.

Day 3: Monday 2 April: Ephesus

We were up and waiting when Aysel appeared with breakfast at 9.  It had been raining a bit in the morning so we ate inside and everything was lovely.  The traditional Turkish breakfast of olives, egg, cheese, bread and honey is growing on me, although i can only have it so many times in a row.  We wanted to get a fairly early start, knowing that Ephesus can be crowded and hot, although the rain would help and it wasn't yet Easter, so tourist season wasn't in full swing yet.  Back down the hill, playing chicken with the tour busses bringing new Germans to the town, we found a bank, so I was no longer impecunious and on to one of the most famous ancient sites in Turkey. 

Mostly I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I'll sum up by saying that I am glad I saw it, the Terrace houses were worth the extra admission, I dont have to go back.

mile stones, except they didn't use miles back then.

What is the plural of sarcophogus?  Sarcophogae?

The church of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus

The baptistry.

The ancient cat knows all, but doesn't let on.

Main street Ephesus

Waiting for the show to start.  Apparently they estimate the size of the population by the size of the ampotheater.  There had to be a seat for all of the people of the town.  People being defined as landed men of a certain age.  From their number they can extrapolate to the total population.

The market plaza.

If you believe the guides and guidebooks, this carving in the street tells you that the brothel (heart with many rooms) is on the left foot side and it has beautiful women and takes credit cards.

Public latrines, seats about 30.

Inside the Terrace houses, an upper income apartment complex with lots of preserved art on the walls and floors.

There must have been lions in Turkey at some point because they were all over the art. 

No wall paper, but painted to look just like it.

Practicing depth of field on the wild flowers.

This was the library. I wonder what the books were like?  Scrolls? Papyrus?  I really dont know what the chronology of book technology is except that Martin Luther and the printing press are contemporaries.  Did they have fiction?

Most of the good art was in the museum, but I think it would be cooler out on the buildings where it would have been.  It survived there for thousands of years...

This was the council chambers, much smaller than the ampitheater.

Picking up the loose ends in Selcuk, we went to the Seven Sleepers (dud), to the Virgin Mary's house (over hyped), to the Ephesus museum (not the best) and we tried to get to the Bassilica of St. John, but it was closed by the time we got there.

Psyche and Eros in the museum.

Artemis, goddess of fertility.  Thats a lot of boobs, but without nipples, how useful will they be?

The temple of Artemis was one of the ancient wonders of the world and all that is left is this puddle and one standing column.  Who got to decide what the ancient wonders of the world were? 

St. John's Bascilica - closed by the time we got there.

A multilingual crow tries to decide which guidebook to buy.

I dont remember where we ate lunch, but we headed back up to Sirince in the late afternoon (for a nap and read) and then out to dinner at what used to be the Greek school.

This place didn't come very highly recommended, but it was just about the only place that was open. Alex had a glass of peach wine. (The area is known for its fruit wines) and given the initiative I ordered black berry. I liked it very much and wished that I had had the courage to go into one of the wine shops and try it earlier and probably even have bought a few bottles. Well, there is always a next time...or if not a next time, maybe someone else will go there and bring me back some.

Day 4: Tuesday 4 April: Aphrodesius

We bade farewell to Aysel after another lovely breakfast and headed down the hill for the last time. One wrong turn in Selcuk and we found the main highway east. It was about 2 1/2 hours to Aphrodesius, a lesser known Helleno-Roman ruin that is not really on the way anywhere, nor very close to a city with any ammenities, which is reportedly under visited and superior in every way to Ephesus. Once we worked out that we couldn't drive to the site, but had to pay to park and then take the shuttle bus/tractor, the rest was a breeze.

On the road in rural Turkey.

Add tractor to our list of conveyances on this trip.

In the museum at Aphrodecius, this is Pythagorus and Socrates, apparently they had a disagrement and aren't speaking or even looking at each other any more. 

This is an example of what I mean by the museum telling a story.  There was this huge colonade and they have put it back in order in the musuem and then tey tell you about it.

Each panel tells part of the histroy.  It is like having the textbook, in comic strip form on public display all the time.

The three muses.  I would put this art in my house, but they didn't have a life size copy for me to buy and I thought it unfair to take the original.  I settled for a postcard.

The gate into the city, which didn't have walls, so I am not sure why it needed a gate. 

Part of the issue with restoration is dealing with the swamp.

Unfortunately I think this church originally had walls and a ceiling, although on a day like this, I think they would be unnecessary.

This was the forum, so just the voting members needed seats. Now it is the setting for the Cirque d'soliel show νερό. 

Close up of the pond in the forum.

This was the hipodrome and amphora, now a swimming pool

Another ancient cat.

Alex trying to look like ancient stone.

The museum was really well laid out and you could imagine how things were arranged originally.  The signage was good and told a story about the statues.  My guidebook says that it is still only half excavated, and I believe it, but what has been done already is very impressive.  After touring for awhile we had and ice cream for lunch and headed out to Pamukkale.

I am not sure if we missed our exit, or if the atlas is wrong (it is 14 years out of date) but we had a bit of trouble finding Pamukkale the town (not the tavertines which we couldn't have missed if we were blind).  On a second pass, we found it and lucked into finding our hotel.  The reservation was confusing and didn't seem to have the name of the hotel on it, but it turned out to be the Pamukkale hotel, so what we thought was just the location was actually the name.  When we stopped to look at the map we were accosted by some guy who has a hotel and invited to follow him to it... no thanks.

When we arrived at the Hotel Pamukkale, we were greeted warmly by a woman whose English was pretty good.  She wanted to put me and 'my husband' in a room with one bed, but was willing to switch when I asked for two.  The outside of the hotel was bright pink, so perhaps i shouldn't have been surprised when the inside of the room was bright yellow.  it is a wonder we were able to sleep in it.  Again we napped/read and then, arranging to have dinner in the hotel that night, we went for a walk. 

The public park at the bottom of the travertine.  The water was coming from the hot spring at the top.  It flowed through town and was filling the swimming pools. 

There is a public park at the bottom of the travertine and about a block from our hotel, so we went there first to walk around and get our bearings. The spring at the top of the hill produces a lot of water rich in calcium, which when mixed with the CO2 in the air precipitates as CaCO3 when the temperature is cool enough. It is kind of like yellow stone, but white. I wonder if the calcium limits the formation or if it is the solubility of CO2. I also wonder how fast it accumulates and where all the calcium comes from in the first place. Sadly there wasn't a lot of science explained here.

Dinner in the hotel was fine, we were the only ones eating and it was clear that our food was made fresh to order.

Day 5: Wedneday 4 April

It turned out that breakfast was included with our room, so as we were leaving to see if we could find a simit, we were redirected upstairs to the terrace for a traditional Turkish breakfast.

We had found the entrance to Heiropolis the day before when we missed the town of Pamukkale but I hadn't realized that that there was just the one entrance for both attractions (the ruins and the travertines). I had thought we would visit the ruins and then go back to the car and to the travertines, but that isn't how it ended up.

Necropolis - a fancy way of saying graveyard - in Hieropolis.

We were told that we were still a few weeks early for the bulk of the poppys, but they were a good distraction from the old rock.

I dont think the travertine grows very fast, so I am sure the owner of this masuleum had plenty of time to consder his fate, but since he was probably already dead... the plants do surprise me.

Another public latrine.

The hipodrome with just a little section reconstructed. 

 The ruins were fine. Anticlimatic after Ephesus and Aphrodesius, with a big emphasis on the necropolis. The wild flowers were my main attraction and I think I was just getting tired of ruins. I have been looking at many old rocks in my last several vacations and I am looking forward to switching back to animals, or finding another attraction all together. When we got to the end of the ruins there was a museum inside the old bathhouse. After the musuem was the resort where you could swim in the hot spring or get attended to by doctor fish who come and eat your dead skin and things and then the begining of the travertine. Perhaps we should have just stuck to the top of the travertine, most of the other tourists were, but I wanted to see it all and we ended up walking all the way down (barefoot to preserve the rock) to the public park we had been at the night before.

The only nod to science at the hot spring.  There are some interesting inaccuracies...

Lions eating bulls, quite ferocious for a column topper. 

Tourists were not allowed on that part of the travertine. 

Alex in the second or third pool.  It was too bad that the sky wasn't better for picture taking. 

You can see that the ground of the pool was powdery and that some of that is suspended in the water.  I would guess that it makes them look blue, much the way the sky looks blue - refaction. Another opportunity for science tourism missed.  

The air was cool, but the water was very pleasent.  Not cool, not hot.

A cool map of the town as it might have been back in the day.  I wish all of the sites had had this sort of plan, it make it so much more real. 

 Alex, being the gentleman that he is, offered to walk all the way back up to get the car once we realized that there was no other way around except the highway and the bus only comes as far as the top of the travertine. 

I took his jacket and went back to the hotel to wait and read and after he returned and had a nap I bought him lunch.  We went out after lunch to see if we could find any other of the sites mentioned in the guidebook and supposedly near by.  We did find one which was virtually deserted except for the lizzards and archeologists who were actively working on moving things around and putting things together.  I was tired of old rocks, but it was cool to see that folks were actually work on it.  I wonder if there is only so much money, or only so many archeologists, or if there is some sort of lottery system for determining what site gets worked on for how long and when.  It isn't a job I would want, thats for sure.

Main street Laodicea

We saw no cats at this site, which is probably why we saw so many lizzards, but I wonder which is cause and which is effect.

Archeology in action.

Much of this amphotheater was recycled for use in other builidings.  What is the line between saving something for antiquity and recycling? 

We determined to have dinner outside the hotel on the second night and that proved harder than I would have guessed.  Most places weren't serving dinner and one place that was, gave us a choice of loud Turkish music with cigarette smoke, or loud disco music with cigarette smoke.  We kept looking and eventually found the hotel that Felicia had recommended (but was booked when I tried) and they served us dinner even though we weren't staying there.  Unfortunately I wasn't thinking quickly enough to give a room number when they asked, or we could have had a free meal.

Day 6: Thursday 5 April: back to Izmir

After breakfast we headed out, I was driving by this point, back to Izmir to return the car and catch an airplane.  I had been warned that it is very tricky to find where you are going in Izmir and I wanted to allow for many mistakes, so we left much earlier than we needed to.  The low gas light came on on our way, and we probably would have stopped for gas except that I wanted to push it and it wasn't clear which exits had gas anyway.  By the time it was desparate, the next gas station we saw was the one at the airport and I wasn't going to give the car rental place free gas by getting some at that point.  We called the company and they sent someone to meet us at departures, we gave them the key and walked away.  I hope Alex hasn't heard any more from them, but I guess they have my phone number so I probably would have heard first.  We were more than 2 hours early for our flight, but the woman at the check in counter offered us seats on an earlier flight which was just about to board.  Yes!  Turkish Airlines gets a few points back in my book after canceling the other flight. 

I get a quick hamburger from Burger King and we are headed home. 

Traffic in Istanbul was awful and after an hour in the plane and 2 1/2 hours on the bus, I decide I am not going out again for the Maunday Thursday service at the Union Church, instead we chill at home.  I think I made some popcorn and Alex may have gone out to get something more substantial.  The beast was fine, thanks to Aylin, and I was very happy to be home with her again. 

In summary: it was a good trip, a good amount to see, in a good amount of time, a good balance of driving and old rocks, buget hotels and very nice places to stay.  Renting a car and driving in Turkey was easier than I expected, giving me more confidence for next time.  Alex was a good traveling companion, but it is always nice to be home (defined as where the cat is).