Turkey Round 6 (Ephesus, Pamukkale)

I promise some day I will catch up on all of these. One of the unfortunate things about giving myself a step by step process is it gives me convenient places to pause.  Or fortunate because life is a little busier right now than usual! Between Fellowship applications, around the world romance, residency , call and that pesky thing most people call life on the side I am trying to prioritize and much to my dismay blogging about photos can't hold much weight.    On to the fun.  A recap of the sixth (full day) of Turkish adventures with My Love. 

After a brief traffic jam of other cars and multiple tour buses we reached Ephesus and it was WORTH THE WAIT. Not sure my preemptive bathroom stop before we began wandering around was worth the line to the women's bathroom that wound around multiple levels of stairs was.

 A photo  shy cat greeted us at the closest ruins.

Along with more simply beautiful poppies. Seriously who doesn't love these. 

 At every step there were lines and lines of beautifully carved and fallen stones. Most numbered with the aforementioned interestingly non sequential numbering system.  

 Each one had it's own unique details and interesting crevasses that I actually got to experience a bit of exasperation from Love over. (A rare event.) He seemed a bit distraught that I might stop to photograph and touch each one.

 He was right I was tempted to just spend my day memorizing and cataloging each one.

 Accept this one, she creeped me out more than a bit...wasn't about to touch her. Not a big believer in haunting and such, but not pushing my luck because if anything around here was going to be haunted it was scary open mouth guy.

 I wish I had taken a bit more time to give this photo some  scale, but in my most descriptive fashion, "It's big."

 Yeah, that's me standing next to a column...

 A rare warning sign at a Turkish tourist sight, they don't put up many, but when they do they are amusingly straight forward!

 As I stood posed for more than a few moments I gave up and finally exclaimed, "What the heck are you doing?" Perfectly timed with his click of the shutter. 

 We walked and walked and as we did I noticed more and more off in the distance, you coudl spend what seems liek months just exploring here.

 Though exploring might have been a bit more fashionable if I had had one of these getups to wear while I did it.

 Notice the new GIANT sunglasses, I don't love 'em. I loved my old ones. I tend to get overly attached to things like this.  It took me years to trade in my car for a new one and after all that process all I can say about the new one is that "I miss my Celica but the Jetta has heated seats."  I have a pair of shoes that are twelve years old and the only reason I stopped wearing them in public is the giant holes in the bottom allow water and dirt in. They are irreplaceable......Rant concluded....

 This was an amazing beautifully preserved/restored place. Sorry about the blonde blocking the good stuff but she apparently forgot to just take a picture of the "library." Here you go, since I know you can't live without knowing whats behind those giant sunglasses.

 If you are ever here I highly recommend you spend a good portion of your time looking up.

 Again Look up!!

 Need I reiterate, LOOK UP!

 More than a few generations have been here and I loved all of the differing styles that brought.

 Yes ladies, he's handsome, sweet and as evidenced by this photo, a bit taller than I am.

 "Why are you going down there?"   My response, "I wanna."  Yes, I revert to childhood when there are beautiful interesting things to be explored, even if they are dank ancient tunnels.

 When I'm buried I want one of these, actually you can cremate me and I'll share.

 But how about a less tragic or violent scene on the side of mine, maybe puppies playing in a field of poppies :)

 Maybe my poppy obsession is related to my dandelion love. (Only crazies like me find dandelions from yellow to white to be amazing flowers.)

 Off to the Church of Mary which was by far the most peaceful portion of our day. Serine.

 We walked through poppy lined corridors surrounding the main rooms for a while, it was a bit cooler on the top of the hill here. And there were very few people that had ventured out this far.

 But what does it say!

 Leaving our peaceful spot left me to hold the passenger seat of the car firmly in place. Look the light at the end of the tunnel. Bridges are feats of physics designed by the lowest bidder and built by the cheapest available workers with the cheapest materials possible, and tunnels are just reverse bridges where princesses Di(e).  I being a princess am not a fan of bridges and definitely not tunnels.

 After surviving the miles of tunnels we arrived at Pamukkale, and I was elated to see DUCKS! o really, It was amazing; that is not snow. 

 This my friends makes the nerd in me smile that I get to explain it is indeed the breathtaking ramifications of a supersaturated liquid. 

 When the water, supersaturated with calcium carbonate, reaches the surface, carbon dioxide degasses from it, and calcium carbonate is deposited. And yes I was inappropriately dressed secondary to lack of suitcase.

 It makes travertine.

 It also makes amazing patterns as the water flows in differing directions, speeds and encounters different temperatures.

 Any little imperfection in the surface leads to a new bump, thread or ripple.

 I got a bit too close to one of the warm falls, and apparently it was very near body temperature because I was nearly completely soaked by the time I realized it. By nearly I mean completely.

 The transatlantic cankles had nearly resolved at this point and this gives me the opportunity to show you some of the water running over even the shallow spots.  My feet are the less hairy ones to the right.

 No food coloring here, just Mother Nature in all her glory!

 What sane woman could resist a man that checks in with his parents every day! 

 It makes me want to crack open a slab and see what's hidden in there, but then I remembered it does indeed make a sedimentary rock hard enough for counter tops. Now I'm stuck wondering what's buried in the middle of all those counter tops.

Ended the day with a huge dinner.  I chose to take advantage of the packets of Chick-fil-A Honey Mustard I had inadvertently smuggled through multiple rounds of airport security. It does a body good.  We also made a quick trip to find more sunscreen as the glare from bright white Pamukkale had helped give me a toasty red glow.

Turkey Round 4 (Mount Ida, Ayvalık, Bergama)

You really can't beat waking up to a private breakfast in the mountains.

We stopped at a little waterfall on our way on the walk from the road we both spotted a coin in the dirt...Made it a good thirty foot past and I decided I wanted said coin.  Most patient boyfriend in the world joins in the search for the silver gold coin in a ten by forty foot path of sandy soil....FYI, found it...equivalent to about six cents. I have no idea why I decided I must have this coin, but I adore it none the less.

The long beautiful trek back up and down the entirely unpaved single lane was relaxing and exciting. Stopping occasionally to take pictures of flowers and scenery.

And it was beautiful scenery, mountains, olive trees, conifers and the sea.

Our next stop was Ayvalık and who can have a bad day when after searching ...ummm... 'briefly'.... for our hotel we are greeted with this view to our left.

And this view to the right.

After a brief nap we ventured back out for lunch.

A further bit of insight into Turkish travel- these people are hard core meat eaters.  Meat bread and cheese.  Asking for a vegetarian day is like asking a southern girl to drink unsweetened tea...it ain't happening y'all. Likewise asking them to remove meat from an item elicits much the same response as telling her there is sugar on the table for their unsweetened iced tea. (A look of shock followed by, I'll just have something else)

The little cafe we ate at was adorable and the company was pleasant....ie....far a few between, quiet and primarily of the feline nature.

It was then off to Bergama.  Up the lift, which I don't recall the Turkish word for and Love did not immediately recall the English word for- making for an interesting charades type moment in the car.

We reached the top of the long lift to start venturing through the ancient city.  First stop, ancient Greek puppies of course.

I remember grade school science fairs. One particular poster I created was about the force an arch could withstand.  As I looked at this arch I recalled my very clearly written instructions to remove your rings before squeezing the eggs (perfectly constructed little force withstanding arches)........Apparently adults can not read because I had multiple smashed eggs and teachers with gooey hands. Rant ends here.

Ahhh, giant amphitheater, hundreds of steps, a swift breeze that would nearly pick me up on the way down......Ninety degrees with out a breeze and seemingly a thousand steps on the way back up. None the same height. Either way, totally worth the climb.

I couldn't go through a single perfectly constructed tunnel without being in amazement at the ability to withstand time.

This is that moment we realized we had to go back up all those steps at some point in the heat, c'est la vie.

I was obsessed with touching things, more specifically rocks, old carved rocks.

I recommend purchasing a remote shutter release for your camera if possible, no need to hunt down a stranger to take the photo with you.  I almost never carry my tripod...This days scene provided many ornate rocks to prop my camera on (a what self respecting camera wouldn't prefer an ancient hand carved pedestal to a modern tripod anyway).

My remote shutter release has a two second delay setting which I use to tuck the remote away for the picture. Love uses it to randomly attack me with kisses in front of the camera.

Isn't it wonderful...I figure there are at minimum three more like it and they should have just let me take this one, Love seems to think it was a bit big for my suitcase and I'd have better luck trying to smuggle drugs than any of these rocks out of the country.

OOOO OOOO OOO...carved rock, must touch it!

I think we should have detail work like this installed in the Rads department, who wouldn't want to come to work every day if the ceilings looked like this.

We can put a few of these of the Flouro hall.

And these over by CT....

I'm not saying I always resist the random kisses.

It was windy, very windy.

Why hello little lion dude.What is your prior purpose?

These little lovelies were behind a big gate. Probably because people like me have brief thoughts like, "Look purse sized."

Back down the lift, listening to two middle school teachers from Australia talk about their shopping adventures, Ugg boots and being a bit worried when their students say they love their outfits.  And now time to sit by the sea again. (Sigh of contentment.)

Little boys ran past as we sat a climbed into the water gathering mussels as the sun set.  They and the cats provided great amusement as we waited for dinner.

The chairs were a bit close to the edge for my comfort but you forget the constant fear of dropping a chair leg of the edge and plummeting into the sea fully clothed when you look into those eyes.

Abandoned tea glasses. (That's all, I just like them)

Three little fishies that never saw me coming.  I thought about naming them, but here was no time, I was starved.

Lots of little scraps for the patient cats that joined us for dinner.

The harbor was lined with cute little cafes and these vintage Coca Cola chairs and tables were to die for. But it does now make me wonder about the Turkish pronunciation of it as the "c" is given a "j" sound.  Joja Jola?

We finished the night with a hunt for Baklava, and boy did we find it. Enough to have leftovers in the morning. (which were mysteriously gone when I woke the next day.)