well, it's obvious I'm a student...

...because I'm travelling like one! Last Saturday, Le Xuan and I went on the day trip of all day trips, to Selcuk and Efes (or, as you probably know it, Ephesus). We caught a bus to ASTI (the bus station in Ankara) to get tickets for the overnight bus to Izmir. On the local bus to ASTI, we ran into 2 exchange students on their way to a triathlon, 2 more on their way to the Black Sea coast, and the entire ODTU debate team on their way to Izmir for a tournament. Everyone was getting their last-minute, end-of-semester travel in. The debate team found us cheap tickets (native speakers can negotiate better discounts), and we were off.

We got in to Izmir at 8ish, give or take half an hour. From the bus windows, it looked like a nice city; the bus station was 6 kilometers from downtown, though, so we didn't "see" Izmir. As we got off the Ankara-Izmir bus, this guy asked us if we needed help (foreigners stand out in Turkey, and between my whiter-shade-of-pale and Le Xuan's Vietnamese heritage, we practically screamed "Yabanci"); he said he'd get us to the right bus to Selcuk, but he had no clue where it was and led us to the wrong level of the bus terminal. I had that part of Lonely Planet memorized, and got us back on track, on the bus, and off to Selcuk. After an hour on the minibus, we arrived in Selcuk, brushed off several touts, and figured out our bearings by finding the museum, information center, and the road to Efes. As we were more than a little groaty after the overnight bus, we decided that the first order of the day would be a visit to the hamam. It was amazingly refreshing; it was interesting, because I've been to 2 different Ankara hamams, which have a primarily local clientele, and this one was very definitely geared for tourists. The hamam itself was coed, the staff was mainly male, and everyone kept their towels on (probably because the hamam was mixed...). Also, the staff spoke fluent English. I think I like the local hamams a bit better; the Hamam Ladies are half the experience, and it's so fun dealing with the language barrier. Anyhow, the hamam was exactly what we needed, and we left there fully awake, refreshed, clean, and ready to see the town.

We started at the Roman Aqueduct remains, which are home to many large stork nests, and spent time watching the storks. We walked along past the citadel, which was closed because of structural instability, and past what turned out to be the Basilica to the Isa Bey Camii, which was built by the Emir of Aydin in 1375. It was gorgeous, but my favorite part was the palm trees and other greenery in the courtyard. The minaret was different, as it was flat on top to accomodate a stork's nest (Selcuk is a stork-breeding hotspot). We ran into our first tour group of the day at Isa Bey, they were German. From the mosque, we walked back up a cobblestoned hill to the Basilica of Saint John. Truthfully, it was more the Ruins of the Basilica of Saint John: the entire place was leveled over the course of several earthquakes and myriad building materials looters, and excavations are ongoing today. It still looks pretty nice, and they have a surprising amount of it rebuilt, including a fresco or two. The Basilica was built in the 6th century over the tomb of Saint John, the apostle and Gospel-writer; if it stood whole today, it would be the 7th largest in the world. The Basilica had beautiful views of the city and the countryside, all so green. There were tons of tourists, though: a big school group from Izmir, and a group of Turkish police trainees who immediately glommed on to us to practice their English.

After touring the Basilica, we stopped by a restaurant for some pide. We ate outside, as it was probably 75, and beautifully sunny. The pide was great, except our table was under a tree, and (those of you who know certain relevant stories from my past will find this fitting and highly amusing) as we were talking, a bird "decorated" my last two slices of pide. It was a hoot trying to explain it to the waiter, and once he understood, he was really apologetic. I found it more ruefully humorous than anything. After that, we browsed through the horribly-overpriced souvenir stalls, laughing over the male fertility statues and made our way over to the Efes Museum.

The Efes Museum was incredible: there were soooo many busts, statues, and other fragments of Roman life from the ruins at Efes. We saw a lot of depictions of gods and goddesses, most remarkably Artemis: her statues featured rows of breasts/testicles across her chest, and a gorgeous headdress. The carving was more intricate than I would've imagined was possible, and beautifully detailed. The museum also had an exhibit on the gladiators of Efes; it was truly fascinating. I didn't get any photos of this section, but I should have, because it was so interesting. They had examples of gladiator weapons, and I'd never imagined gladiators bearing weapons like those: there were daggers, which were pretty normal, but there were also handled weapons with three and four iron points sticking out, and another called "the scissors." When I saw that label, I looked and looked at the examples, but saw absolutely nothing resembling a pair of scissors. "The scissors" are actually a metal cup-looking thing that fits over your hand, with a nasty-looking 2-pronged barb at the end. There apparently was a carefully delineated protocol for gladiator fights: a gladiator was trained with a certain weapon or weapon combination, and the weapon types were carefully matched against each other, so that a pointy-thing gladiator wouldn't fight a scissors gladiator, but might fight a dagger gladiator. The exhibit also featured excavated skeletons of gladiators; you could definitely tell what they died of! I think 4 evenly spaced puncture holes in the skull would put a damper on anyone, and you know a weapon had a lot of strength behind it when it's still stuck in the skeleton. It was, all in all, an utterly fascinating exhibit; the displays on gladiator culture were exceedingly well done, and they even had tombstone translations, so you could read how long a lot of the Efes gladiators lasted. Looking at the directional signs in the museum, the gladiator exhibit might have been the Kids' Exhibit, but I thought it was excellent.

Well, it's past 3AM here, so I'll try to cover the Temple of Artemis and Efes itself tomorrow. In the interim, here're my photos from my trip:

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040008&l=e5875&id=911357
and
http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040294&l=5360d&id=911357

I'm in my downtime between exams at the moment: I had 2 today, so I'm at 3 down, 2 to go. I'll probably go travelling this weekend, to the Black Sea coast and maybe to Georgia. Now is definitely the time to travel: the lira is at 2/3 of a dollar, versus the 3/4 of a dollar it's hovered around all semester...guess who's going shopping :-P

Hope you all are doing well,
-R