Holy Springs, Wishing Walls, and Very Old Toilets: Ephesus & Kuşadası

Here's another of Turkey´s wonderful peculiarities: in the span of 24 hours, you can stand under beautiful olive trees at the house of the Virgin Mary, and you can also go on a party yacht. You don´t even have to change between them if you don´t want to (İ changed because I didn´t wear my swimsuit to Mary´s house.) That pretty well sums up my trip to ´Izmir´. İzmır ıs ın quotes because we didn`t actually spend any time there--it was all in the surrounding area--specifically, Ephesus and Kuşadası. BUT THATS FİNE BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME. We stayed at a hostel ın Selçuk, which is a town near Ephesus that ıs good to stay ın (hostel ıf you can call 45 L a hostel, but ıt included breakfast and dinner and also rocked) called Attila´s Getaway. It has a pool, which was a big plus, and a good breakfast and dinner (you can order menemen for breakfast, which automatically means it´s good according to me). Also--and I know this is going to make me sound terrible--a bar that served pina coladas and margaritas and other fruity drinks. In Bodrum, they just looked confused and tried to give me apple juice and whiskey. But Attila´s is totally the place for people who love ancient ruins and margaritas (which, probably, should be everyone.)

We took a tour on Friday that took us to Artemis Temple, Mary´s House, and Ephesus. There was also for some reason a leather goods fashion show somewhere in there, but I didn´t understand that so I´m going to skip it. Our tour guide was very happy but didn´t speak the best English...oops. It was fine, though. He took us to Artemis Temple, which is theoretically cool because it is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (and the people who worshipped there had a special version of Artemis that was different from just the bow-carryıng Artemis), but in real life it was just a column (and even that was reconstructed, apparently) and many a duck sıttıng around it in a little pond.
Mary´s House has also, I think, been reconstructed, but it is just ınsanely awesome regardless. The site is supposed to be where Mary spent the last days of her life. I forget that after all of the hullabaloo of Jesus being born--even after Jesus dıed--Mary was still around. She came up a mountaın wıth St. John (and Mary Magdalene, apparently) and died in a little house shaded by an olive grove. Around 40 AD, I think.
The house itself is teeny, but there´s a beautiful path up to it that weaves through the olive grove and passes by a hole in the ground that used to be a baptısmal pool. I wish they kept water in it. The house has been converted into a chapel, and they hold mass there now every day. (A very small mass, because the house can probably fıt ten people). Next to the house is a wishing wall and a place to light candles.  I lit a candle for my wonderful Grandpa Ken (who would probably disapprove), and we went to the ´holy spring´ on the path below Mary´s house and argued about whether blessed water could have giardia in it or not. In hindsight I can say that it probably did not have giardia, because no one got sick.

The wıshıng wall (Photo credit: Azra Muftic)

Speaking of bathrooms, Ephesus had zero of those. Cool on one level--go untouched ruins!--and moderately unfortunate for people visiting a large-ish ancient city made of highly reflective marble at 2 pm in the middle of July. I think we each drank 3 liters of water. It ended up being fine, though, because Ephesus is SO COOL that İ couldn´t even think about going to the bathroom. Yeah. I know.
So basıcally it is a giant Greek / Roman city (different times, different people) that is huge and made out of marble and has all sorts of fancy things that are still intact such as a library, a brothel, and a HUGE public toilet. The toilet was just for men. Apparently women didn´t pee in Ephesus. (I asked the guide and he just shrugged and said ´behind a bush?´ so he clearly has read a lot on the subject). Anyway, it was cool. They even had the city set up so that there was a commercial district and a business district. I wish I knew more about it because now I am feelıng uneducated but basically, I wısh I was an ancient Ephesıan (only not a woman because then I couldn´t pee.)

One of the temples in Ephesus (Photo credit: Azra Muftic)

OK. So that was our day of ruins. The next day, we hopped on a bus to Kuşadası, a port that ıs super close to Selçuk, and got onto what can only be described as a party yacht. It was literally just a boat covered with floor pillows that cruised around the Aegean while playing Macklemore (which is, students, what we would call globalization.) We floated around for a whıle and then stopped at two different islands, where everyone jumped from the top deck of the yacht and then went swimmıng / exploring. The islands were mostly rocks, but the water--hoo-wee! It was salty and freezing and incredibly clear. So clear that I could see the bottom as if it were four feet down, but couldn´t reach it even holding my breath for a REALLY long time. It´s a little eerie to be able to see that far down. But mostly just awesome. We could see fish without even using goggles.
The boat cruise lasted until dinnertime, but we had to hop on a bus to the Izmir airport before we could eat dinner. Which meant Burger King for dinner. And which was somehow, the most delicious Burger King I´ve ever had. Go figure, Turkey.

Bodrum and Horrible Field Trips

Bodrum is on the southwest coast of Turkey, which is a little um, far for a two-day trip (read: totally crazy and I was so tired when we got back) but hey--we are young. Young enough for a 13.5 hour bus ride, apparently. At least this time they didn't play loud music to wake us up in the middle of the night for a pee break. The best part of the bus ride was the boat part. I fell asleep, and when woke up our bus was driving onto a boat. I woke up because the bus was swaying. So we got to watch the sunset on a boat.

Apparently Bodrum is good for clubbing, but we did not do that. All I did was sit on the beach in Turgotriez, a little town about half an hour outside of Bodrum, and eat midye dolma and sun-warmed cherries. The Aegean is so much saltier than the Pacific or the Atlantic--you dip in and then the salt starts to crystallize on your skin. I thought I had skin dandruff for a second when I first got out of the water (because that exists, obviously) but alas, it was totally just salt. Also I could see Greece from the beach. If I hadn't been mussel-bloated and also if there weren't powerboats everywhere, I could have SWUM to Greece. Maybe.

The view from our room. The little lump in the distance is Greece!

The food was incredible, although I was also a little sleep-delirious (sleep-deprived? I like sleep-delirious better) so maybe it was just me. After our 13.5 hour bus ride, we wandered into this little restaurant that I think might have actually been a house and had breakfast. It was a Turkish breakfast--olives, cheese, bread, whatever--but epic. They gave us kuru fasulye (amazing amazing beans, although I think I'm the only one who is really excited about them) and sarma (stuffed grape leaves) and fresh spinach borek and, the best of the best, dolma cicek. Dolma cicek is a magical food made out of rice and spices that have been STUFFED INTO A FLOWER. It is a stuffed flower.
The people in the house probably thought we were nutso because we were a) exhausted b) wearing our pajamas and c) ordering quantities of food that probably no one should be allowed to eat.

That night we went to a seafood restaurant, and I had some rockin cupra. The waiter came over to me and said very solemnly, "You have to clean it" and then walked away. So then I got really nervous about what I was supposed to do--do fish have guts?--but I couldn't see the waiter anymore so I just went for it and ate the whole thing (including the cheeks!!). I may have eaten fish giblets (is that a word?). Update: I'm still alive, so it's fine.

Cupra, post-eating

In other news (my news-telling is not chronologically sound) I went on a horrible field trip. The class is called "Ottoman Art and Architecture", which sounds awesome (right?). Sadly, the ONLY WORD the teacher can say in English is "problem". (She also thinks everything is a problem.) She took us to this really cool place, Yenikapi, where there's an ongoing archaeological dig and they've found about a billion shipwrecks. But for some reason we went all the way down to the dig site and all we did was watch a Powerpoint about shipwrecks. Not cool. And then we went to the Archaelogical Museum, which is really cool except when you are trying to figure out if the things the teacher is shouting in Turkish will be on the final exam. Hmph. Apparently all the English-speaking tour guides were "busy" that week. Still, the museum was pretty cool.  This week we are going to Topkapi Palace, and I'm crossing my fingers that I either learn to speak Turkish really quickly or we have a guide.

A statue from the archaeological museum whose significance was explained to me in Turkish. 

Angry Cats and the Wonders of Love Valley: Cappadocia Pt. 3 (Slightly late)

Last night, while my stomach was taking on the Herculean task of digesting all that food, we went stargazing on top of some of the giant rocks. You could see the Milky Way. It was the clearest night sky I've seen since stargazing in the middle of the Amazon, but just what a completely different experience. Sitting on a mountain of hardened volcanic ash, where people have been finding refuge for 4000 years, and seeing the stars just totally made me forget that I was lying in white chalk dust and that there was a stray dog following me around trying to eat my pants.

I got up this morning at 5:45 to watch the hot air balloons (the ones I was too wimpy to pay for) rise AS THE SUN ROSE. From our terrace. Our cave terrace.

Balloons from our terrace

 I've never seen a place that makes an entire industry out of hot air balloons. But Kapadokya, you got me. After watching the balloons in total awe for a half hour I went back to sleep in my cave (IN MY CAVE) and then woke up at 7:30 to have breakfast.  Sigara borek (just salty little cylinder pastries) and watermelon and cheese and super-strong tea and dried Cappadocian apricots (probably from like a foot away because there are trees everywhere). Also brownies, for some reason. Those I did not eat. But sitting and eating breakfast while looking out over the weird white rocks was pretty crazy. Except for the cat. I think he was the hostel cat, and he definitely wasn't stray, but he was quite aggressive about getting my food and clawing at my feet. And Azra, in turn, was equally aggressive about yelling at the cat. So it was a loud breakfast.

After breakfast, Azra, Maia, Oya and I (everyone else was sleeping in their caves...) went on a hike through a couple of the valleys. We had one of the hotel guys drive us to the starting point, and then we ran into some French people  that we met on the bus, but they weren't terribly friendly and so we awkwardly passed them a couple times on the trail. As we were walking, we saw an old woman harvesting her apricots and she shouted at us to come over and try them. So we ended up walking along a volcanic rock valley munching apricots and these little fruits called cala (no idea how to actually write that).

We walked through Honey Valley, then White Valley.

Honey Valley

 By walking I mean sliding down incredibly steep chalky slopes through super-prickly bushes. It was less of a path and more of a lot of small cliffs and ledges. Then, we got to Love Valley. It was...interesting.

Love Valley from the distance

After we stumbled down the valleys and finally got out on the other side--after an hour, even though the hotel guy said it would take two--we took a shuttle back to Goreme and had menemen. I could eat menemen all the time. I know it's just scrambled eggs with tomato and pepper, but there's something mysterious about it. Menemen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner would be fine with me.
After lunch we all packed up and left for the airport. The Kapadokya airport is, incidentally, tiny. And full of sneaky old women who will cut in line and then bring their entire extended families along to cut in line with them. Not cool, especially when we are already so linguistically challenged and haven't showered in two days (and are thus stressed about personal hygiene). But we got on, despite the best efforts of the sneaky old women, and now I am home, and I just took a pretty epic shower and am doing LAUNDRY. My life is crazy.

Trout-Obsessed Bees and Glorious Gozleme: Cappadocia Pt. 2

Southern Cappadocia is really....large, and the public transport system exists in name only (the name being dolmus, the actual system being i-didn't-see-it-the-entire-time), so we paid 95 TL apiece to get driven around to different places for the day. For the most part, it was worth it. We drove to this beautiful valley (Ilhara Valley) and walked through the valley a few kilometers. There was a stream, which was weird because the rest of this place is basically just beautiful rocks and dust and no water, and we could see the monastery caves that had been carved out in the giant rocks next to us. It was awesome.

                                                                         Ilhara Valley

We went to lunch in Ilhara Valley, which was really exciting at first because we got fresh river trout and got to sit in a hut on little stilts on the stream. Then it all turned terrible. There were bees. A LOT of bees. At least fifteen bees just hanging out, sitting on my fish, buzzing around in my ears. Next time you eat trout, remember that it is mysteriously seductive to bees. I have no idea why bees would be so into trout, but I'm terrified of bees (traumatic experience with orange soda and bees as a child), and it just made the whole meal a lot more stressful. And then I had to rescue my waterbottle from the trashcan (who throws away a full waterbottle, especially when you're in a mini- DESERT?).

Our deceptively peaceful lunch spot.

Finally, after about a half hour of bee-based shrieking, one of the waiters brought out some coffee grounds that he had lit on fire that were supposed to scare the bees away. Didn't work. Stressful lunch.

The stress was worth it, though, because after lunch, we drove to this giant cave monastery from the fourth century that was just basically an entire mountain of volcanic rock that had been carved into churches, dormitories, cafeterias, you name it. For some reason, the fourth-century Christians built their cave churches so that they looked like they had Roman architecture--you know, the domes, the windows, the columns. Which would have been a great idea, except it was literally in a CAVE. Carving out the shape of a window without having an actual window = just awkward and sort of useless. But pretty.

Useless windows.

After that--this is the coolest part--we went to an underground city that people ("people" being I forgot who--early Christians probs) built for times of war. It was pretty intense. The city goes 55 m underground, but they had rooms for keeping livestock and graves and food and everything they needed. And they built a ventilation system!!! Pretty cray. It reminded me of the Catacombs in Paris, except no one cared about ventilation down there because it was for dead people (why they didn't care when it was a coal mine, I don't know.)
The underground city was followed by an awkward visit to a very expensive jeweler where our tour guide all of a sudden started trying to make us buy stuff. Also the salespeople were saying mean things about us in Turkish about how we came in our pajamas (we were all wearing hiking clothes. DUH). So I didn't buy anything and glared at them for a while.

Here is the best part of the whole day: dinner. We were walking up a hill past a restaurant and this boy was handing out free samples of gozleme (the Turkish version of a crepe). Gozleme, I think, is amazing no matter what, but this was particularly good gozleme. So we went there, and it might have been the best meal of my entire life. First, we got fresh lavas (bread) that this old lady was making in a stone oven RIGHT IN FRONT OF US and then sort of throwing it at us. And it was unlimited. And so, so, hot and perfect with yogurt-dill sauce (also unlimited, although we asked for so many refills I felt guilty.) Then we ordered a bottle of Cappadocian wine. Not as good as, say, Bordeaux (I promise I only know this because I was just in France I don't normally know anything about wine), but pretty good. Then Kimia and I shared something called "dry beans in pot" or something--I forgot the Turkish--which was great but the manti, little Turkish dumplings covered in yogurt sauce and magic, was just wild. I don't even know. I don't know what's in them, but they were little packets of buttery pasta heaven. Azra got a "pottery", which is a thing here, and it means that they bake a stew inside a pot and then have to chop open the pot (with a mini-machete thing) to get at the stew inside. Just so cool.
OK. Here comes the best part. I, admittedly, have been to many a baklava store in Istanbul. Also in New Haven and elsewhere. This was hands down the best, most crazy-delicious baklava I've ever had. It was so fresh, not sweet, and just...I don't even know.

Baklava that cannot be captured in pixels.

 To make my life even crazier, Oya apparently (apparently because it was in Turkish) that her American friends had come all the way to Turkey to try rice pudding and how could they be out of rice pudding?

So they MADE US FRESH RICE PUDDING. AND IT WAS FREE. The waiter put one of them in front of Azra and she wrinkled her nose and was like "oh I don't like rice pudding" but then she tasted it and changed her mind. We are talking Platonic rice pudding here. Also baklava. Also manti. Oh man.

Cave Life (and Turkish Truck Stops!) (Kapadokya Part 1)

Ten hours. Far too long for a bus ride, especially one that requires an hour-long shuttle to GET to the bus stop. We left Besiktas at 6:15 pm and got to Cappadocia at 8 am. Eep. There was all kinds of fun food along the way though--at one stop, a guy just hopped on the bus and started selling simit (bagel-y bread rolled in sesames). And we got to try Turkish cotton candy, which has flour in it. Weird.

At every truck stop, the angry old women on our bus completely hogged the sinks. They all wanted to spend fifteen minutes washing different parts of their body--including their feet--and so no one could wash their hands until all the old-lady feet were clean. It's a prayer ritual, I know, but it was frustrating to not be able to wash my hands for so long. Also I was on melatonin because Kimia gave it to everyone to help them sleep on the ride, so being at a Turkish truck stop was really confusing and chaotic because we were all sleep-drugged and also because there were markets, restaurants, and like 5000 versions of Turkish delight for sale. It was kind of hallucinatory. I bought what I thought were dried apples but which were definitely not dried apples (I dk what they were).

This place is white. And dusty. And rocky. It feels like we are on Mars, in a nice way. We are staying in a hostel that is literally in a cave. It is called Shoestring Cave Hostel, and it was kind of expensive (25 TL/night/person) but we are living in a cave. So worth it. There is a pool with an amazing view and a little dog named Princess that waddles around through the rooms all day.

After we settled in, we met this nice little old man who has a jewelry shop just down the street from our hostel. We all had tea with him! He had quite interesting views on the Gezi Park stuff that's going on--he thought countries near Turkey were trying to hype up the drama so they could steal Turkey's tourism and boost their own economies. But then again, the US is also hyping up the drama and I don't think we would get any tourism leftovers.
On our way to the Open-Air Museum (had no idea what it was; now I know that it is awesome) we found this pottery place and bought little painted tiles and stuff. Then they let Michelle, Oya and I throw pots on their wheel! I made a very ugly little cup, but they put it in the kiln for me and now I have a souvenir.

                                                             Michelle throwing her pot!

For lunch, I had a chicken sandwich that turned out to be literally half a loaf of giant bread with a tiny amount of chicken inside. Actually, it was a normal amount of chicken, but the ratio was just insanely off. The bread is so amazing here, though, that I ate the whole thng (and then felt disgusting while hiking). Also, "iced coffee" here involves copious amounts of whipped cream. And chocolate syrup. I'm all for it.

The Open-Air Museum. It took us three hours to get there even though it is only half a mile away because we kept getting distracted. None of us had any idea what it was, but here's a fun fact for anyone traveling in Turkey: the Istanbul Museum Card works ALL AROUND TURKEY. Not just in Istanbul. So the museum was gloriously free! It turns out the museum is a bazillion little tiny caves that have been carved out at various points in the past couple thousand years (I clearly don't know my history) and have been made into beautiful cave churches filled with frescoes (either geometrical shapes or Christian stuff--annunciation, crucifixion, etc.)  To get from one cave to another, you have to walk through this giant beautiful mountain with huge rock formations everywhere. I can't do it justice with words. But it's way better than walking around in even the most well-air-conditioned museum because there are no hallways--just mountain. Azra and I paid a little bit extra (8 TL) to go inside the "Dark Church", which is where the most well-preserved frescoes are (some of the others are pretty weathered, which makes sense after being outside for so long). The Dark Church only has one window, so apparently it got less snow etc. It was pretty cool. I wish I knew more about religion and art from that time period (whatever time period it was...), because basically all I could pick out was Jesus and Mary and whether Jesus was a baby or a man. Probs incomplete.

                                 The view from one of the cave churches at the Open-Air Museum.

I can't remember what I ate for dinner. I was that tired. But I'm sure it was good. Yay for Cappadocia!

Kaşar Peyniri and other mysterious cheese

So I went food shopping in Etiler. Like real food shopping, not buying Ruffles. And it was by far the hardest thing I've done here (way harder than the physics material, but hey..) I guess that's what happens when you are familiar with neither the Turkish language OR the food culture. Example one: I thought I was buying mini-bagels, because they LOOKED like mini-bagels, but as soon as I tasted them I realized I had made a huge mistake. And, upon googletranslating the label, I discovered that they were called "salted cookies" (the label said kurabiye tuzlu). Salted cookies shaped like sesame mini-bagels.
Example two: cheese. I actually do know the word for cheese (peynir), because cheese is so important to me, but there were so many rows of cheeses--all pale and smushy-looking, because that is how they do cheese--and I was afraid I was going to end up with cream cheese or non-cheese or basically anything in the world. So I bought a little lump of kaşar peyniri and ate some. It tastes like sour mozzarella, like mozzarella that is yogurt-flavored. BUT according to google translate " kaşar peyniri" means cheddar cheese! (I want to bring some 5-year wisconsin cheddar to them and see what happens.) So I'm eating yogurt mozzarella and bagel cookies and while it is quite good, I think I will bring a dictionary shopping next time.

Last night, I went to this amazing balikci (fish restaurant) in Etiler and had the most delicious fish I've ever had in my entire life. No joke. First we had calamari, and then these little anchovy-ish fish that were fried and battered (and that you can eat whole) and THEN I had something called cupra and I have no idea what it is (my muse, googletranslate, says it was bream) and it was crazy. I had to eat around the head and pop out the spine, which is so gross. Oh, and we had raki. I was a little nervous, but apparently if you drink it with fish or other lean protein (instead of bread, which is just a rough trade-off) you don't get headaches. And I didn't! It still is terrible-tasting, though.

Edit: Cherries are also frighteningly good here. Why have I never heard of Turkish cherries? Also, Turkish Delight is as good as everyone (ie. the little boy in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) says it is.

In non-food-based news, we had a beer pong tournament last night that I think was organized mainly for the Americans (I guess to make us feel "at home"?). They played 90's American pop the entire night. It was fun.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July! I don't think I've ever been out of the US for the 4th before. I have to figure out how to celebrate! (Ideas welcome!)