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Published: July 25th 2005
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The whole KU Istanbul study abroad group took an organized trip a couple weekends ago to Troy, Ephesus, and the Aegean coast.
We went to Troy first. It was interesting, but there isn’t much there in terms of preserved ruins. But still it was cool to be there and see what is left. We stayed at a little hotel on the coast. I went for a swim in the Aegean. It is incredibly clear - the clearest water I’ve ever seen. The place where we stayed was a bit dodgy. It was a fairly remote area and the electricity was inconsistent. We walked down the street to buy a couple beers, and the Turks who worked at the place we were buying beers offered to build us a fire on the beach and serve us our drinks, so we all hung out on the beach that night.
The next day we went to the Pergamum, an ancient Acropolis (301 BCE) about an hour north of Izmir. This was the most interesting place we went. It’s at the top of large hill/small mountain, overlooking a long valley. The theatre there was incredible. The great thing about going to such places
in Turkey is that one is able to really explore the place without many barriers. I think this has something to do with the fact that Turkey has fewer lawyers - there isn’t an obsession with safety here as there is in the US. We climbed all over the ruins - it was fun.
After Pergamum, we were taken to the house where Mary of Christian fame lived for some time after Jesus’ death. This really didn’t interest me much - it would have been interesting to me historically if it had been the original house where she lived, but it wasn’t; it was a replica. The devout Christians in the group were very interested though - especially in the “healing water” that comes from some very earthly-looking faucets outside of the house. The whole thing was basically a religious shrine, where people lit candles, crossed themselves, and drank magic water. We also went to the ruins of an ancient hospital, which isn’t worth recounting.
We stayed overnight in Izmir. We all went out to a Hookah bar on the water that night, which started a Hookah addiction among the group - we’ve now become regulars at one
of the Istanbul hookah spots.
The next day we went to Ephesus. These were the best preserved ruins we saw. Ephesus is an interesting place with an interesting history. In reality, probably more historically significant Troy.
After Ephesus we went to a place where Turkish rugs are made. Sounds boring, but I found it very interesting to actually see them yarn the silk and see how the women make the rugs. Rugs are ubiquitous here - easily the most common art form used to decorate Turkish interiors. It takes approximately 9 months to create one rug. The process is extremely delicate, and is only done by women with small fingers. Turkish rugs are composed of thousands of small knots; some rugs can have up to 2000 knots per square inch. They are generally made with either wool or silk or a combination of both. The silk rugs are usually more intricate, because silk allows the women to use more knots per square inch. Authentic Turkish rugs cost anywhere from about $150 to $15000. One person in our group, who had traveled in the Middle East and bought oriental rugs before, bought a couple rugs for $7000 on the
Ephesus
This is the road to the ancient port - the sea has receded about 4 miles since then. spot - they were beautiful.
The trip was fun overall, but I hate being part of an organized tour because i hate having my schedule dictated to me - especially by some self-styled “historian” crackpot of a tour guide. This guy drove me crazy the whole time. He claimed to be a historian, and then went on to expound on his little theory that the Armenian genocide didn’t ever happen because “you will be amazed to know that word ‘genocide’ was not existing before WWII.” So, his conclusion seemed to be that, because the word “genocide” didn’t exist, no Armenian “genocide” could have occurred. He also never gave any basic historical context for the places we visited, but instead told a series of tangential historical anecdotes like “apparently, one time, emperor sit here and choose wife, and when father protested, emperor paid much money because he want daughter so much.” At Ephesus, I finally just bought one of those self guided tour things so I could learn about the basic history of the city.
So that was that - sorry it took me 3 weeks to relay this trip.
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lenny
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envious
Incredible experience: what do you think of Supremes nominee?