Merhaba, again.
I'm so happy to be able to upload these pics!
After Bergama we took the bus down to Seljuck, the ancient site of Ephesus. We arrived just after dark and had a tip from our previous hotelier about a pension. The minute you get off the bus your usually met by someone trying to guide you to 'pansyon' or hotel, so we pretend, or 'believe' that we actually have a room at a place to avoid being taken advantage of.
We headed off with our 11 bags (including the guitar) and soon found our self in a residential part of town. We stopped to ask directions at a corner liqour store but got only bewildered looks at the mention of Homero's Pension. About this time, Rory's gastro-intestinal distress kicked in, in an emergent way, and I left the others standing on the corner as Rory and I ran back through the streets asking everyone, Banyo? Tuvalet? Bathroom? Luckily, we made it in time, and when we returned to the liquor store, someone had called Homero's, and the owner was on his way to pick us up.
Dervish, who turned out to be a gregarious and delightful man, loaded us up in his van, and then seeing how many we were, asked 'how many are you?' "Five, well come to my house and we'll see what we can do." We got there and were given a tiny room with three beds and no space for the two mats which we were planning to put on the floor for the kids, but at last we had a place to sleep and put the $#^&* 11 bags including the guitar.
Homero's turned out to be one of the best experiences we've had so far. These people were genuine, fun, and made us a part of the family. Ayse, the daughter of the matriarch of the family (referred to only as 'the Mama') was home visiting with her Australian husband, Ron, and two daughters. The place was full of interesting folks, several aussies, a couple from Portland, Oregon who have a condo in Mosier, and so on.
We got there too late for dinner the first night, but luckily Theresa came up with the plan of staying two nights and catching the early morning bus to Bodrum the day after. So, the second day we went to Ephesus and other sights, and in between we sat on the terrace of Homero's, and watched The Mama, a perpetual motion machine of Turkish cooking, cleaning and mothering. It seemed every time we sat down someone brought out a little something for us to eat, and there was no question, you just ate it, and it was delicious; grapes, pears, pomegranates, fried potatoes and rice--all as a kind of appetizer for the meal to come.
Around 6:30 we went up on the rooftop and drank some homemade wine and watched the sunset--beautiful.
The dinner was delicious; dolmades, potato soup, meatballs, eggplant, rice, fruit. Afterwards, we went to the carpet shop, owned by a friend of the family, and escaped with only a few small things--Helen got a very small silk carpet.
Later we went back to the terrace and I got out my guitar for the purpose of singing a song that had to be sung. Some of you have probably heard the song, 'And the band played Waltzing Matilda.' It's a song about a huge bloody battle which occured in 1915 between the Allied forces and the Ottoman Turks who had been persuaded by the Germans to close the Dardanelles to Allied shipping. The song is about a veteran of the conflict who loses his legs and sits on his porch every April (when Australia celebrates Anzac day in commemoration of the battle) wondering what it was all for--there were more than 150,000 killed on both sides. As you can guess it's a sad song and not very good for dancing. But sitting there with a couple of Australians and having just come from Gallipoli (which is in the same general location as Troy) I couldn't help myself. I then stayed up into the wee hours talking with Ron and Graeme about Gallipoli, war, and sometimes even hope for the future.
The site of Ephesus is truly astounding. It's a city going back to way before Roman times, but is of great biblical interest because it is where John came after exile and alledgedly brought Mary the mother of Jesus here (also read Paul's letters to the Epheseans). Apparently it was such a hotbed of activity because the locals were way into worship of the goddess, Artemis, depicted with 40 bare breasts. When Paul visited Ephesus he caused a riot with his anti-artemis talk--the merchants and manufacturers of Artemis statues (many of which were made from silver) were not ready to give up their livlihood. In fact, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus was considered one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world by the 'travel writers' of the Hellenic period, but more on the 7 wonders later. Today only one pillar stands of Artemis' 4 story temple.
The pictures are of the site of Ephesus--the Library of Celsus and the Amphitheater (which held 25,000). Also the terrace at Homero's and the kids shelling beans with their new friends.
I'm off to Knossos, the huge Minoan site on Crete.
Ciao