Welcome to my new blog for the year while I am on vacation....errrr.....am stationed in Izmir, Turkey, commonly referred to as the "Pearl of the Aegean". If you don't know much about Izmir, this post is designed to give a Cliff-notes style review.
Izmir, formerly known as "Smyrna" is on the western side of Turkey, in a bay that connects directly to the Aegean Sea, which is adjacent to the Mediterranean. Turks throughout the country view Izmir as a very "liberal"part of Turkey, as the locals rarely bow to pray during the 5-times daily prayer blasted throughout the city of roughly 3 1/2 million people. They also wear jeans/t-shirt or slacks/button-ups daily, it is quite uncommon to see a local in the traditional muslim-style garb, as you would see in southeastern Turkey near Syria/Iraq/Iran).
More history lessons in later posts as I visit the ancient sites throughout the region, and now for a little about me. I am assigned to the A4 (Logistics) office at "NATO Allied Air Component Command, Izmir." I have no idea what that means yet, except that there are 20ish folks in the shop, I am the lowest ranking, and there is only one other American. We have a Hungarian Colonel as the Commander of A4, with about 12 other European countries represented.
The reason that I have absolutely no clue as to what I'll be doing is because there's a massive exercise going on at NATO, so my sponsor/supervisor (the other American) told me to steer clear this week and next to look for a place to live. I've currently got it narrowed down to two places, of which I'll post pics when I finalize the process. I will be living in the downtown area, close to the BX/Commissary and Chapel (the USAF rents it and we are the only tenants....guarded by steel walls/concertina wire/guards). The St John the Baptist Basilica is gorgeous (pic below) and the chaplain puts together many religious tours....tomorrow I'm traveling on the tour to Didyma, Miletus and Priene (post w/ pics to follow).
So, as I continue to figure out exactly what I'm doing here, I'll keep you all updated. I should have the pics from the trip tomorrow up by Sunday morning....pics of the apartment by mid-next week. Here are a few other pics that I've taken since being here:
-Hoşçakal for now
You spelled Izmir wrong... there is an dot over the first i.... if you want to be correct. Don't you have a Turkish keyboard?
ReplyDeleteAlso, you need to post the pictures/description of the three real Pearls of the Aegean
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