Tuesday, June 17

Prof. Shields wanted to give us the day off today for rest and relaxation in Selcuk, but we had other plans. There were so many sights that we wanted to see and things that we wanted to do that we had to spend a long time just planning out how we were going to fit it all in! We ended up leaving for the first of our excursions, Ephesus, at 8:30 AM after a traditional Turkish breakfast on the terrace. The Turkish breakfast includes tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, olives, a ton of bread, jam, honey, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, and of course, Turkish tea.

Ephesus was even more intact than Pergamum – it had been reconstructed, which means they had placed the original columns found scattered all over the site in the places they were supposed to be according to records. We kind of gave ourselves tours with books that Prof. Shields got for us, and it was so neat just to walk around the city. I almost immediately found the relief of a caduceus and the health clinic that it pointed to and was very excited about that.

We also found the baths, the public toilets, the library, and the brothel. On the marble road, there was a carving of a foot, a heart, and a woman and it is said that this pointed the way towards the brothel.

ancient graffiti leading the way to the brothel

the Marble Road

the Library of Ephesus

the latrines

After Ephesus, we headed up to the House of the Virgin Mary. Although it is not certain that it was actually Mary’s house, there are several pieces of evidence in the Bible and in some mystical visions of a nun that led the Pope to declare it part of the Catholic pilgrimage. We were moved through the house pretty quickly, but once outside there was a place where you could light your candle and put it with the other candles as a sign of your devotion or as a physical embodiment of a prayer. It was beautiful and moving, especially to me after seeing so much Islamic religious sites that are of no real religious value to me. They also had a prayer wall where you could write a prayer and stick it in, and that was also very moving.

the prayer wall

Then we stopped at the archaeological museum and saw some awesome friezes and statues, even some medical instruments used in Greek and Roman times. Then it was on to lunch with a friend of Emily’s family who lives in Izmir, Mrs. Gurel. We had a wonderful lunch in the garden of a medrese that had been converted into a center for nomadic art.

After that, it was on to the beach – finally we would get to take a dip in the Aegean! After playing in the waves, Edward and Clayton calling to us in “humpback whale” language, chicken – fighting, and burying Clayton in the sand, we went back to ANZ Guesthouse for a quick shower before dinner.

one of my few pictures of the Greek village

For dinner we went to this Greek village up the mountain. We got there at the perfect time, right before sunset when the light is golden and perfect for picture-taking. And of course after about three pictures, my camera battery died. But my fellow classmates got some awesome photos, and the views from the village were amazing. We went up there after the buses had stopped running, so we were really the only tourists there – there were only villagers around. We ate dinner there too, and tried some of the fruit wine that they are famous for.