So, Carissa arrived a few days before New Year's and after she go over her jet lag (it's +7 hours from Charleston to Izmir), I took her out to see the city. We were blessed with great weather for January...Sunny and low- to mid-50s. I took her to where I get my weekly local shopping fix... "Kemeralti" (a HUGE bazaar), with thousands of small shops and locals yelling random things at us in their broken English, like "HELLO! LEATHER JACKETS?" or "TEA POTS" and other random stuff. I don't think she was a big fan of the hassling of the vendors, but it's definitely a thing you have to get used to. After Kemeralti, we headed to the water's edge and enjoyed the great weather. This is where Carissa had her first "Turkish coffee". It was a bit on the burnt side, and I think she still prefers her Starbucks.
The next day, we headed to the Izmir Clock Tower, which is one of the more famous sites in Izmir. We didn't dare get too close because there are always a TON of flying rats (aka pigeons) on the square, so we took our pics from a safe, anti-bird-bombing distance away. I then took her along Konak Pier and the water, which is lovely on a sunny day. Later that day, we went back towards Kemeralti where the "Smyrna Agora" is located. This was the ancient city of Smyrna's central meeting place for commerce and government WAY back in the day...about 4th Century B.C., after the location was moved (by instructions of Alexander the Great) from the other side of the Izmir Bay. This is a underfunded historical site, but still pretty neat to walk in a place that is a couple millenniums old. That night was New Year's, and luckily for us we could see the fireworks from one of my balconies, so we could enjoy my BX-champagne/wine and the view from the comfort of my place. I probably should have taken pics with my actual camera instead of my iPhone, but it was MIA at the time.
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| Izmir Clock Tower in the background |
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| Much of the Smyrna Agora is still underground |
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| Here is part of the underground section of the Agora, bottom right of the pic is a water fountain that still brings "fresh" water from the mountain |
After sleeping in on New Year's we went to the Izmir Museum of History and Art, which houses some pretty interesting statues, coins and potter from thousands of years ago. We also did a bunch of shopping at the New Year's Market (pretty much a Christmas Market) in Culture Park where we got some of the belated Christmas gifts for the fam. The next day was our big sight-seeing day, as I booked a private tour to take us to Ephesus and the Temple of Artemis. It was really nice having the driver, tour guide and just the two of us. Big shout out to "Ephesustours.biz"...they were really outstanding. The pics can show how awesome Ephesus is better than my words....
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| From the Izmir Museum of Art |
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| Library of Celsus in Ephesus |
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| Main theater in Ephesus (there's more than one) can hold around 25,000 people and still holds concerts today (including Sting, Pavarotti and Elton John) |
The other part of the tour was to the location where the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). The Temple at it's best was 450' long, 225' wide, and 60' tall, with at least 127 enormous columns. Unfortunately, there's only one column remaining today, but as one of our travel goals is to see as many of the Ancient Wonders of the World sites as possible, this at least knocks off our first one!
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| In the bowl is a ton of silk worm cocoons, where they gather the individual strands, up close are the usable strands for carpets. |
After we snapped a few pics of the Temple site, we headed to a Turkish Carpet "factory" where carpets are handmade, and we saw how they make the silk thread and how they tie the knots for the carpets. I'm pretty sure that I successfully tied a few knots without rendering the entire carpet completely worthless. I understand now why these are so expensive. These carpets can take months, and sometimes years for one person to make by hand...so spending a few thousand dollars on one is actually a steal.
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| Me messing up the nice lady's carpet...she promised me should could fix it. |
And finally, the saddest day I had in a REALLY long time...I had to take Carissa to the airport, and I am hoping to see her again as soon as she gets off the plane in August from her "undisclosed location in Southwest Asia"...Soon after that (Octoberish?), hopefully we'll get to actually live together!
