Ephesus

 Friday June 10

The sleep-in continued, but this time unintentionally.  Last evening it sounded like other alarms were being set so I did not set mine, which I usually do when the getup time is essential as it was today - we had a plane to catch.  When we woke Patti, 70 minutes after her alarm was supposed to do the job, she did the little 'Patti Freak Out Dance' that we have come to know and love. Somehow we still made it to the airport in time to chill at the lounge, only because it was steps away from our gate. I could get used to this lounge lizard thing. 

The plane ride was 45 minutes from Istanbul to Izmir and we were thankful for that. It may have been the roughest roller coaster of a plane trip that we have been on. Things were fine until just after lunch was served - kinda funny on 45 minute flight to have lunch, maybe the Turks are easily hangered. While the fine dining part of the journey was concluding the plane when into a steep and sustained descent for what could have been a minute. This continued with shorter duration drops and climbs. The woman next to me gestured what I was thinking - here comes lunch...again. After a very hard and tilted one wheel landing the thrust reversers were engaged for what seemed to be a desparate amount of time.

We picked up our rental car and I refamiliarized myself with stick shifting by making an unintentional lost lap around the parking garage which allowed us to wave to the nice car rental guys as we passed by again. It was about a 45 minute drive to Selcuk where we dropped into our comfortable accomodations, had the customary Turkish Tea, which is fashionable any time of day, then headed over to Ephesus, or Efes as the locals call it.

The ancient city was pretty amazing, I can let you read about the full history elsewhere. Here are some points of interest.

Terra cotta pipes supplied freshwater from a reservoir above town and other pipes carried the waste out of town.  One of the theories as to the cause of the silting of Ephesus Bay was the waste generated by 250,000 residents. Ewwww.

Hercules had his own gate in the city. Can you tell he is wearing a lion skin?

Stadium seating was a thing. This mass production site is located rather high up in the city. One would think they would locate it closer to the downhill edge of the town, but I am sure there was a good reason, sanitation, engineering, politics, money?

This housing complex is under excavation. The durability of the stone floor mosaics is easy to understand, but the longevity of their wall decorations make Sherwin and Benjamin most jealous.

I think it is the Library of Celcus and the Amphitheatre that really help lead to this sites designation as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The facade of the library is something to see, that it could survive like this buried for so many years.

Courtesy of a stranger -

#NotFasterThanA3SeondTimer - #3SecondDashFail

It did not really hit me at the time, but to stand in the place where actual Biblical history had played out, on the floor of this 24,000 seat amphitheatre where Gaius and Aristarchus were dragged before the men of the city as recorded in Acts 19 is pretty amazing. The kids have been with us to Rome, where Paul made his appeal before Ceasar, but not to the actual building. Patti and I have walked among the pyramids in Cairo built by Israelite slave labor, but that is a little more abstract than putting our feet where these two men did.

My parting thought as we left was 'This stuff was built to last and it didn't. Ours isn't and it won't.'

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