Ephesus and Balikesir

 11/17: The cool, rainy weather yesterday and today made leaving Bodrum and our lovely seaside home a bit easier. Sidebar - yesterday (11/16) it rained and stormed all day and we enjoyed a lazy day at our place. We ate a bunch of random leftovers and watched The Way Way Back which we all enjoyed.

We drove about 2.5 hrs to see the ancient city of Ephesus. I had looked up the cruise ship schedule and saw there was indeed a ship(s) in port today, so we were worried the site would be really packed. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at 11:45 to very few people and no rain (we were also worried about that given the forecast).

First of all, hilarity just outside the ancient site:

The ancient city was really impressive and cool

The public latrine

The Library of Celcus

The amphitheater - Sting and Pavarotti have performed here

So many stray cats and dogs - the ones at this site seem pretty happy

We had our picnic lunch in the car on our 2.5 hr drive to our hotel in Balikesir. The only reason we were here was because it was a decent size city to stop for the night between Ephesus and Istanbul. We asked our hotel receptionist for a dinner restaurant recommendation, and ended up at a fantastic locals place. We had the most delicious food and enjoyed it with our bottle of water (no alcohol served at this restaurant, plus it’s Sunday night and we’re trying to only have special drinks on the weekends). It’s so interesting to see so many Turks smoking like crazy, but there are many restaurants that serve no alcohol. Sidebar: I keep thinking of what Josie said about seeing the men in Türkiye sitting around drinking their tea and smoking and comparing it to what she sees in South Africa which is people sitting around drinking beer. She said she’d rather see the smoking and tea. More interesting thoughts…

The people were drinking bottled water, coke, or kefir - which is so interesting! It’s such a strong, unique flavor that I would never think to have with my dinner.

The people here spoke no English - but they were super friendly and worked with us on our pointing at what we wanted to eat! The traditional supangle and firin sütlaç for dessert were yummy.

Bob and I took a walk around the area by our hotel after we got the kids settled into our rooms to talk with friends (Simone) and play Fortnight with Nick (Quinn). We couldn’t believe how different Balikesir was from the other Turkish cities we’ve visited. It was clean, with wide sidewalks, designated parking spaces, and lovely twinkle lights above the road where we were walking. Turkish flags were everywhere (this was throughout the country, and also flags with Ataturk’s face were everywhere. We commented that you’d never see one of America’s presidents from 70 years ago on flags flying through the States). There were tons of people out, shops were open late, and it seemed so much more regulated and official than other Turkish cities. Bob commented that it felt like a college town.

We got back to our hotel (walking past a Starbucks which was very rare to see and also a Caribou! We had not seen one of these!) We enjoyed watching the first half of the Packer game together before Simone and I went to bed in our adjoining room while the boys stayed up til midnight to see the finish  (Packers won by one!)

11/18: Bob awoke at 0500 to a pack of wild dogs barking while I woke at 0600 to the call to prayer. We all utilized the exercise room before the hotel breakfast,  then checked out at noon and drove 2ish hours to Istanbul. Tonight we’re staying in the airport hotel to make our journey to Sarajevo easier tomorrow. Bob had an adventure trying to return our rental car (no signage, stopped to ask a police officer where to go, ended up in the basement of a dark parking garage looking for a Europcar employee). I’m so thankful he has done all the heavy lifting in these scenarios, including driving in Türkiye!

The gym in the airport hotel is huge! We may try to use it before leaving the hotel at 10 to walk to the airport for our 1230 flight. It’s a 2 hr flight and we gain 2 hours - it will be nice to be only 8 hrs ahead of home!