A turkey in Turkey

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İ love turkey!!!

so after supper last night i just went to bed and read and watched a little bbc world before bed (only station of 20 in english).

slept in a bit this morning and then headed out to see some sights in İzmir.

The waterfront is beautiful. Lined with cafes and restaurants (too expensive for my taste heh), lots of people around to watch. There are a couple of nice squares along the way with monuments to people İ dont know, altho i'm sure some are for Atatürk or however you spell his name. He pretty much founded the present day Turkey back in the 20's and brought all kinds of reforms like ditching the arabic alphabet and bringing in the Roman one and ridding them of foreign words and such. He also made Turkey a secular state. However the skyline is still dotted with minarets and its beautiful. The call to prayer rings out five times a day.

İn from the ocean is like another world. A concrete jungle. The traffic is insane. bumper to bumper on pretty much every street, horns blaring constantly. they dont treat pedestrians very well, gotta watch yourself. Theres a huge bazaar near my hotel so I took a walk through there this morning. some produce and food stalls, some fabric and scarves, and again a cazillion cell phone stores! its crazy.

went to the tourist info place to ask about getting to Selçuk. she told me a bus office to go to. when i got there dude tells me they dont go to selçuk just straight to ephesus. i dont know what thats about but then i sauntered over to teh train station and there are 5 trains a day that take just an hour and it costs only 3 bucks! (vs 6 for the bus haha). so im gonna take the train since the station is only about 15 mins from the hotel.

then i went to agora which is roman ruins right in the middle of the sprawl of İzmir. luckily there was a cemetery on the site in ottoman times which left it pretty preserved underneath. it was pretty cool altho they dont have much in the way of information about it around and are still in the early parts of excavation. lots of pillars, arches and a basilica. pretty cool since its surrounded by a virtual shantytown.

then back down to the waterfront to watch teh amazing sunset and to see the mall. its so weird. from full on turkish bazaar on the backstreets with cats and dogs and homeless and stores on wheels to a western style (and virtually empty) mall in 10 minutes.

then it started to rain. very very heavy rain. i managed to duck under some awnings outside a bank to wait it out for a half hour or so and was treated to an amazing lightning show over the Agean Sea. Times like that i really wish I had someone to share it all with.

anyways the rain tapered a bit and i managed to scamper back here to the hotel. train in the morning around 11 to selçuk for a few days then on to İstanbul for the last stop of the trip. cant believe its almost over already. feels like i just left. but i am ready for a few good nights sleep in my own bed.

happy (should you really say happy?) remeberence day

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