Fez Tour - Ephesus

After the teasing Greek cities of Troy and Pergamum, we were quite excited to finally make it to Ephesus, famously known as the best preserved city of the ancient Greeks. Its reputation surely preceded it. As we arrived at the site – a short drive from Kusadasi – we were greeted by swarms of tourist buses. But it is a large place, so we were hoping to still enjoy the experience without feeling like we were back on an Istanbul dolmus.



Our tour leader this time around, in stark contrast to the unforgettable Captain Ali and the competent Pergamum escort with the cool stories about the origins of clapping, we were a bit underwhelmed by our Ephesus guide. Rather than bill herself as an art historian, archeologist or some other type of academic authority, she described herself as "the best finder of shade." Hmm. While this was undoubtedly useful on a hot August day with temps topping 100 degrees, after such stellar guides with impeccable credentials, this didn't seem as reassuring.

Sadly, what I most recall now from the tour isn't the spectacular, just-short-of-being-a-world-wonder Library of Celsus, or the breathtakingly enormous amphitheatre but rather the shortcomings of both our guide and the rushed pace of the tour. Jon was being uncharacteristically photogenic and wanted a funny shot of him sitting on the public toilets. Unfortunately, about 100 other people had this same idea and it actually became logistically impossible to backtrack where I could get a picture of him. (He was lagging behind a bit as usual ha ha.) So we rushed to the Library, where the group had evidently been waiting for us and then moved on after about two minutes, which isn't nearly enough time to take in the amazing condition of this ancient building.




Our tour guide also erroneously told us that one of the four statues outside the Library was "Sense of Humor" and not Knowledge or Wisdom. She was completely wrong. What does sense of humor have to do with a library? But we were at least in a shady spot as she related this inaccurate bit of trivia.

So we left Ephesus feeling quite disappointed, not at anything in the city itself (except for the several thousand tourists) but at the general shoddiness of the tour.




And to add insult to injury, after the tour was finished our tour guide took us to an exorbitantly overpriced and touristy restaurant. Since lunch was included we didn't bother to think about the cost of the drinks – the only part of lunch we needed to pay for. Our guide informed us (again mistakenly) that it was a law in Turkey that you couldn't bring outside drinks into a restaurant. What a scam to get us to buy drinks that we might not have gotten otherwise since we still had a big bottle of water from the morning. The restaurant was overwhelmed by several buses arriving at once so we had a wait a loooong time for our cop sis. Jon ordered an extra drink because we were waiting for so long. When we got our bill at the end we found out that they charged 4 YTL for cherry juice! So he paid 8 YTL for two small cans when you could've gotten gallons of cherry juice for the same price in a local grocery store. What a different Ephesus experience from when I went in November 2003. We had the place to ourselves and maybe one other tour group. It was fabulous to take as much time as we wanted to marvel at the architecture as we imagined walking through the agoras of ancient Greece.

Fez Tour - Troy and Pergamum

The Aegean coast of Turkey is filled with ancient Greek cities. It's difficult to differentiate them in your mind after the fact - was that cool amphitheatre at Aspendos or Aphrodisias? - but these three stick out in my mind. This is partly because I've now been them twice but also because they are among the most visited by tourists.



Let's start with Troy. Troy is certainly the most famous of the three. I never knew Troy existed in real life until my first Turkey tour in 2003. There is so much allure and appeal to Troy because of its well-known history. I was so excited to visit the set of one of history's most well-known stories. Unfortunately for us there is little left to show that Helen, Paris, Hector and Achilles once dwelled in this place. Apart from an endearingly cheesy life-size replica of the infamous Horse,



all that remains are old foundations, a couple of walls and a large ramp that was used for chariots (and alas, historians are sure that it wasn't used to pull the horse into the city).

Our tour guide Captain Ali, who also showed us around Gallipoli (and had plenty more jokes about his wife and his short stature) did a nice job of pointing out some of the interesting details of the place like the difference between Greek and Roman walls. (Greeks had more emphasis on aesthetics for those of you dying to know.)

While Troy is notable for its famous myth/history, the site of Pergamum offers more, well, sights and quite a few interesting tales of its own, told to us by another very interesting and knowledgeable guide . As a weary traveler Pergamum lets you take in more of its history without struggling to imagine what it must have looked like in each of its nine different incarnations. There's the Temple of Trajan, albeit in a ruined state,



and a breath-taking old theatre that could hold about 10,000 people. It is breath-taking merely in its steepness. I felt my legs wobble as I looked down upon it.



This is where, reportedly, the act of clapping first came into existence. Apparently, the Emperor used to come to see shows at this place and at the end of the performance, the Emperor got first dibs on leaving the place to avoid the gridlock that follows such an event. Unfortunately for the attendees, one Emperor didn't have such a great attention span and used to fall asleep during the performances, forcing the poor spectators to spend the night until he awoke. As this continued to happen, the clever theatre-goers began clapping at the end of the performance in order to wake up the sleepy Emperor, which is a practice we've now continued to this day.



Pergamum is also where parchment was invented, after the Greeks were no longer able to acquire papyrus. The creation of this parchment was highly successful, and as a direct result or not, Pergamum also became home to the second largest library in the ancient world, only after Alexandria. However, no books remain from that library because the whole collection was given to Cleopatra as a wedding gift. The Pergamumians (?) were seemingly quite generous because they not only gave up their lovely library but also their entire kingdom. The last king of Pergamum, before it became Roman territory, actually just handed over his whole empire to the Romans. Apparently, he had no heirs or was off his rocker at the time of death. This region of Turkey is one of the few areas of the Roman world that wasn't taken by force.

Ironically, what was taken from the Turks was an important part of Pergamum's history and it wasn't the Romans who were to blame. The exquisite Altar of Zeus



with its marble friezes of an epic battle between the gods and the giants, is nowhere to be found. Where it used to be, there is nothing left but some foundations and an old tree. You have to travel to Berlin, Germany to see this ancient altar at the Pergamum Museum. There is of course much controversy over this, much like Elgin's Marbles at the Acropolis in Athens. It is unlikely that these will be returned, as the Germans would have to change the name of an entire museum to do so.

While both Troy and Pergamum are fascinating and beautiful, the ancient city of Ephesus is simply spectacular. And, not realizing that I could write this much about both Troy and Pergamum, Ephesus truly deserves its own separate blog.

Fez Tour - Gallipoli

Here is the first of my Turkey tour blogs - insha'allah. It was such an amazing experience and we saw so much that I can't hope to remember all of it, so this is my best way of remembering all the little details that made the trip so unforgettable.



If you ask the average American to tell you about the battle of Gallipoli in World War, there's a fair chance all you'll get is a shoulder shrug or a well-articulated "Huh? Gallipo-wha?" Some may recall it as a footnote in Mel Gibson's early career before he went crazy and became a raging anti-Semite. However, if you ask an Aussie or Kiwi, you'll not only get a resounding "of course!" but also a story about the defining event of their countries' history. A Turk will start speaking in a reverenced tone about a young general named Mustafa Kemal, later known only as Ataturk and the founder of modern Turkey. What the Revolutionary War was for Americans, Gallipoli is for Australia, New Zealand and Turkey. The Revolutionary War asserted independence and ingenuity as the true ideals of the new country. Gallipoli brought about the "ANZAC spirit" of bravery and fighting despite impossible odds. For the Turks, who fought against the Australians and New Zealanders, it was a chance for a visionary new leader to emerge from the battlefields.



While today the Turks still have much animosity towards those they have fought in recent memory (i.e., the Greeks), the feeling towards the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Armed Corps) forces is quite an anomaly. Rather than harboring any sort of ill-feeling or disdain for those who sought to invade their country, there is an amazing camaraderie between them. The Turks and ANZAC forces were not truly fighting each other the way the Turks fought the Greeks, or the British fought the Nazis. Both were brought into the war by more powerful forces and simply ended up on opposite sides of the battlefield, more by circumstance than any other reason. The Turks aligned with Germany, mostly because they didn't want to be allied with the Russians, who were in turn allied with the British. The ANZACs were part of the British Empire and didn't have much of a choice in their friends.



The battle of Gallipoli was one of the bloodiest of the First World War. This was partly because of a rather large mistake on the part of the British. The ANZAC troops were supposed to land at an easily-accessible place where they could fight their way to the high ground with minimal difficulty. Unfortunately for them, something went wrong and they landed at one of the most impenetrable coasts in the entire region. The area wasn't even well-guarded because it was a natural defensive point with high cliffs that would prove tricky for a modern-day rock climber.



The ANZACs and Turks fought for months, with their trenches unbelievably close to each other. They had "gentleman agreements" where the ANZACs would be allowed to go swimming in the nearby cove without fear of being shot at. The respect between the two armies was quite astounding, especially when compared to modern-day warfare. (Imagine an al-Qaeda operative not shooting at an American soldier because he was not on duty!) When the ANZAC troops finally retreated permanently, they encountered no resistance from the Turks, who considered shooting a fleeing enemy as low and degrading. The British simply thought they had outsmarted the Turks and had made a getaway without the Turks catching on.



At the end of it all, Ataturk made a moving speech praising the bravery and fighting spirit of the ANZACs and said that they had become brothers to their Turkish counterparts.



"Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives… you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours… You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well."



Nowadays, Aussies and Kiwis flock to Gallipoli every year to visit this immensely important part of their cultural identity. There's the Anzac Cove where you can see the utter futility of the ANZAC's invasion with its impenetrable cliffs. The Lone Pine now sits among a sea of white grave stones. Monuments are everywhere that praise the bravery of both the Turks and their "enemies" of the battle. The most telling of these is that of a Turkish "Mehmet" carrying a wounded "Johnny" soldier in his arms as a symbol of the brotherhood between their countries.



It was far more interesting to visit this place (as an American) as part of a group of mostly Australian backpackers, and a guide who had lost his grandfather to the battle and was still clearly angry at the British because of this. To see the war through their eyes and experiences helped to bring the history of this picturesque peninsula alive.

Thoughts on Istanbul

My time is finally drawing to a close in Istanbul. We have only a few weeks left here, then a Turkey tour and then back home. Here are some of my best and worst of this schizophrenic city.

+The ferry commute. If you have to commute, I can’t imagine a better way than the intercontinental journey across the Bosporus. On any given day, you can see seagulls dive-bombing for simit (Turkish bagels), dolphins jumping in and out of the Marmara Sea or in the water near the Dolmabahce Palace, ocean liners that are the size of several city blocks, massive cargo ships from China, Ukraine and other exotic locales or imposing Turkish military ships sailing by. Not to mention the other ferries and sea buses which always seem to just narrowly avoid collision in the early morning sea traffic. I had to wake up before the sun was up, but these sights made the journey, at the very least, tolerable and occasionally unforgettable.

-The bus commute. Any positive experience from the ferry was quickly wiped out by the connecting bus I had to take into the business center, Sisli. In the midst of Turks squeezing onto buses like sardines and riding in the door as if we were wannabe firefighters, it was less than than an enjoyable way to get to work. The funniest and most absurd part was that if you waited only five or ten minutes, the same bus would come around but with half the number of people. Some things are worth the wait.

+/- The commute back home. Unfortunately to get home, I had to walk for a good 15 minutes to a different bus because the ferry only left twice an hour. My favorite sight in the busy bustling business center was the man and his fruit-filled horse cart driving through the traffic-jammed streets like it was 100 years ago, completely incognizant of the modern world surrounding him. Unfortunately, while lost in reverie gazing at the fruit man, I was once almost hit by a car driving on the sidewalk, in typical Istanbul fashion, going in the opposite direction of the street traffic.

- The traffic. You have never experienced traffic until you have been to Istanbul. The Turks would appear to be the world’s worst drivers, but amazingly, I have never seen one accident in all our six months. There was the aforementioned driving-on-the-sidewalk, which is a daily event here. There is also a lot of backwards and wrong way driving. One of my favorite moments was just outside of our apartment, a narrow and (supposedly) one-way road cluttered with parked cars. The cars were stopped in line and waiting to turn onto the main road. However one of the cars in the middle was facing the opposite direction and driving slowly backwards as they inched out onto the main street. How he got turned backwards in the middle of a row of traffic is a mystery I will leave for the physics police. And this isn’t even the worst (or best?) of Istanbul driving. When crossing another alleged one-way street, we were almost hit by a scooter who was passing on the other side of a bus – in the wrong direction. The dolmus (a shared taxi-minibus) drivers speed so erratically down these narrow, cobble stoned streets that it feels like most of your trip is spent airborne. All street signs and road rules are optional here.

It is sad to leave behind such a fascinating place. I feel that there are few other places in the world could quite capture the chaotic beauty of this ancient city.

Gule Gule Istanbul

Our six months in Istanbul have come to a close. It's amazing how the time has flown! When we arrived, it felt like six months was an eternity. While I am happy to go and actually be able to TRAVEL again (3 day border runs aside), I will truly miss this amazing, schizophrenic city, with a few exceptions that mainly have to do with the 15 million people squished in such a small area.

Cancelled Flights and Harry Potter

After the Parthenon, the most exciting thing I saw in Athens was the "Harry Potter - July 21st" signs hanging in several bookshops. It was so tantalizing and cruel as we were flying back to Istanbul - where I had already scouted out several book stores but none of them mentioned Harry - at 7pm on July 20th, . I was half-hoping for something to happen where we'd have to stay an extra day and even considered bribing some of the bookshop owners. So we made our way to the airport on Friday afternoon.

Our flight was to board at 6:30, which came and went without any Olympic Airlines announcements about delays or anything else. Seven o'clock rolled around and there was still nothing. No sign of an airline rep, except at the other counter where another flight had been delayed. Jon's friend Matt went to question her and she assured him there would be an announcement in the next few minutes. But that announcement never came. Finally at 7:45, the board read "Late" for our flight as if we couldn't have figured it out at that point. The ominous part was that there was no estimated time. So again we waited, with no announcements, no reps and no flight.

There was a group of Canadian guys near us who were also trying to get updates. Matt had checked the board again and told us and them that our flight was no longer listed! Five minutes later and one of the Canadians came back from upstairs to tell us the flight had been cancelled! Again, no reps, no announcements and now no flight! Everything we found out was from the other passengers. We now had to make our way backwards through passport control and collect our baggage. They finally made an announcement about 15 minutes after we learned it was cancelled. And of course there must have been an Olympic rep to guide us through this, you ask. Who the hell knows how to go backwards through passport control? It turns out there was no rep and even the passport guys weren't really sure what to do. They basically scribbled over our stamps in blue ink to "cancel" them.

So we and our fellow disgruntled passengers - not mad at the cancelled flight as much as the complete lack of information about it and what to do. We waited on line at customer service for an hour, only to find out we should have been in another line, which we found out from another passenger who started screaming at the rep that he was going to kill someone. There was a rumor about a bus that would take us to a hotel, which we again found out from other passengers. They had heard we's leave the hotel at 6am and get on a "special" flight at 8am just for us.

They took us to what turned out to be a spectacular hotel, after our jokes of having to sleep in the Olympic warehouse on cots or in military barracks. So we got four hours of sleep - it was about 12 midnight when we arrived and were woken up at 5 for our journey back.

And sadly, this is only half of the Olympic ordeal. I will leave you in suspense to find out what happened next in another blog. Did the bus leave on time? Did we make our 8am flight? Am I still in Athens as I write this???

The long-awaited PART 2....

We thought we were early for the bus. It was 5 minutes before it was supposed to leave. Unfortunately the rest of the passengers were a bit faster than us so we couldn't get on the first bus and had to wait for the second. We not only had to wait for the second bus but for all the slow lazy passengers who couldn't be on time. The second bus left a good half hour after the first, mostly because of some Mexican travelers (terrible stereotype but it was unfortunately true for these people!). Fellow travelers were yelling at them that we were on European time, not Mexican. So we arrived at the airport much later than anticipated. But it shouldn't be a problem since we apparently had a special Olympic flight waiting for us, ha ha.

Upon arrival once again there was no Olympic representative showing us where to go or leading us to a special line. We saw some fellow passengers in a special line, although we were told that we had to wait in the regular check in line! So we divided our forces. Matt and I waited in the regular check in line, only to be told to wait in the other line. Meanwhile Jon is told that he is also in the wrong line. After several minutes of digruntled chatter among our fellow travelers, a woman appears like a beacon of light and tells us to follow her if we ever hope to get back to Istanbul.

We follow her to yet another counter where she then disappears. At this point, I am starving, dehydrated and also dying to see if the book stores are open. So I leave Jon my passport and boarding card on the pretense of going to buy some water. I walked by the news agent and see my beloved Harry Potter books piled up by the entrance. Without even thinking, I get in line with the book and pay with a credit card. The cashier asked me for my passport, which I had left with Jon! Thank god he was happy with my CT drivers license and I returned happily to the Olympic counter, with no water or food but the only sustenence I need to get me through the day.

So while I was away, Matt, Jon and two British guys are told we are going to be put on a direct flight to Istanbul, or a flight through Bucharest, or a flight through Kazakhstan or somewhere else. Finally she hands us a scribbled piece of paper with no info on it that we can discern. We ask her politely what flight we are on and she, unsurprisingly, has no clue.

So the five of us, who are now travelling together, think we may be on the Bucharest flight that is leaving in a half hour. We run to try to find the gate but since we aren't sure if we are even on this flight, we miraculously manage to find an airport rep and hand her our very "official" scrap of paper. She translates it for us and we discover that we are on the 11am Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. We go to the Turkish Airlines counter and they confirm us for the flight and tell us when we can check in. The fact that we have been given actual useful information is just too much to handle so we go and have a nice, if rather expensive breakfast and wait for our flight.

I waited complacently with my book, oblivious to the outside world and all the bureaucratic nonsense that we had just experienced. Such is the magic of Harry Potter. And in the end, I found the book in Istanbul anyways, but that wouldn't have made as good a story.

Escaping Istanbul

I'm not quite sick of Istanbul yet, but after working these crazy hours six days a week, I am so ready for a vacation. So Jon and I are taking off for the tongue-twisting city of Ljubljana in Slovenia for a mini-holiday (i.e., our border run). It looks lovely! And we are also very close to Venice and Zagreb, Croatia so I'm hoping to get the country count up a little higher.

Things I'll Miss About America

As I start to think about heading back to Europe (or Asia or wherever in the world will give me a job), I've made a list of all the things that I'll miss about home. Since I'm not entirely sure where I'm headed yet, I can only draw on all the stuff that was lacking in Spain, a WESTERN European country, and it's unlikely I'll be spending more time in that "advanced" part of the world.

First, of course there is the obvious - family, the puppy, friends, and TiVo.

Let me take this moment to complain about the fact that all the shows are starting their "second" season premieres. When did this happen? Lost does not start again until February, but I may be lucky enough to see the beginnings of the JLA on Smallville (Bring on Aquaman baby!). Then there's the two cool new shows that I know I shouldn't have started watching but did anyways and now I will just be mad that I can't see them overseas - Ugly Betty (brilliant show! She is my new hero) and Heroes. And all the old faves will still be missed - South Park, Daily Show, The Soup, and all those cheesy VH1 countdown shows (The Biggest Baddest Hair Bands of the 80s and such), etc.

Ok, enough about the beloved TV and my boyfriend TiVo. SHOWERS. Did anyone over the pond ever think that maybe someone would like to spend more than 15 minutes in hot water? Does anyone like to take frigidly cold showers, even when it is 100 F outside? They hurt! And what about the water pressure? Some of us have long, thick, curly hair that requires lots of scrubbing under *hot* water to wash out all the shampoo.

24 hour stores. Not that I ever go shopping that late, but it is nice to have the option. This is more of a Spain complaint. What would I do if I run out of mac n cheese at 3am?

Cheap take-out food (again, blame Spain). I would have starved if not for the 107 kebab stands in Granada. Putting a pizza in a paper bag does not count. Neither do bocadillos, the national cuisine of stale bread and cheese with absolutely no condiments. And do I even mention the "to-go" coffee that doesn't have a lid? Yes, I think I do.

Variety of products. Well, this can be kind of a negative in American culture. Yesterday at Wal-Mart I spent 45 minutes in the skin care aisle trying to decide what kind of lotion to buy. Cocoa butter? Aloe Vera? Extra dry or severely dry skin? Or should I just buy the one that smells pretty? But I guess that is better than having only one choice, no?

Ok, still waking up out of the morning stupor so I will end the deep thoughts for now.