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.