Izmir is a modern city right on the Agean Sea. We were the only tourists that we came across pretty much the entire day! In fact, small children even stared at us....
We took a local bus from the station into the city center. It was nice to have Daniel along, especially when he took on the task of navigating the bus system for us! It was pretty much a guessing game as far as when to get off, but we ended up in almost exactly the right spot, 100 meters from one of the ports on the Agean. From there, we pulled out our newly purchased ridiculouly large street map, and found our way to the Ethnography Museum. There we learned about the usual things: camel wrestling, wedding apparel, pottery, felt-making, and the evil eye. We took a quick snack break, and then crossed the courtyard to the Archaeology Museum. Fatigued by the lack of sleep on the bus last night, we didn't stick with the archaeology all that long, nonetheless the museum was interesting.
Next we ventured into the winding streets od the city to look for the Bazaar. We found this amazing fresh produce market at the top of a long, steep hill (obviously), and took our time wandering through it, enjoying the sights and smells of the fresh fruits and veggies. We bought some peaches and figs; Alicia had never tasted the latter before, and Karla and Daniel had to stop her from eating all of them! From there we continued our search for the covered Bazaar, which we finally found. There was mostly clothing, shoes and wedding dresses, and we were finally able to pass up all the funny items on display! We had a cheap lunch of doner kebaps, before making our way back to the bus station, where Daniel re-convinced our bus company to honor our tickets to Selcuk.
The shuttle ride, although short, was far from pleasant. The shuttle attendant had put on a corny Turkish tv show at a high decible, there was a woman whose phone didn't stop ringing, and to top it all off, there was a horrendus stench in the air. At least the scenery was beautiful.
Once in Selcuk, we checked into a hostel, quickly looked for our other Canadian (Jake) who was gonna meet us here, then headed to dinner. Jake joined us as we were finishing up, and then aided our search for baklava (for Karla) and ice cream (for Alicia and Daniel).
We ate our desserts while relaxing and sipping chai in the center of town beside some arches. At this point we thought wed have a look around town as Jake had had the opporrunity to do so and he showed us the highlights. After talking to a carpet vendor at length about how many types of apricots exist and how they preserve them (it all started because Jake offered him dried apricots when they tried to sell us carpets), we walked towards the old town mosque to have a look. We arrived assuming it would be closed but it turned out that the Imam of the mosque was there at his shop and he took us through the beautifully moonlit courtyard to see the mosque. We almost took our shoes off but he told us no since the inside wasn't finished. He said Allah was inside of us and not yet in the mosque. Or something like that. It was a mishmash of new wooden renovations and ancient roman columns inside. It was pretty stunning. He was very proud and told us about the history while we starred all around us. Jake again offered him apricots in thanks and he offered to write our names in arabic as a gift. They were written on beautiful cards which had images of painted tile and embroidery. He showed us the symbols for love and respect in the images as he happily ate his apricots. He was just so so nice to open the mosque for us and on top of that give us the cards. He told us to come back tomorrow for discounts on his ceramics. He said he didn't believe in tourist prices. What a nice man.
We meandered back to the hostel thinking about all of the unexpected adventures we'd had that day and were extremely pleased. All very tired from a night on the bus, we made a bee line for our beds (after a hot shower). Good night!
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1 comment:
I've been so busy these last couple of days that I hadn't gotten a chance to read your blog entries....So I enjoyed entries at a time...it was a treat to read so much exciting stuff. It seems that you've met helpful people everywhere!
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