Traveling and Touring in Turkey

On Saturday we docked at Kusadasi, Turkey, and boarded our buses with Tuba, our lovely Turkish guide to see the ruins of Ephesus, the Agora, the Library of Celsus and the Great theatre. We didn't know much about Turkey, but everyone on the tour was pleasantly surprised. Many Europeans have purchased vacation homes in Kusadasi. Turkey was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kernal Ataturk and became a secular state in 1928. There have been bumps in the road, but civilian rule was restored to Turkey in 1983. We were there right before elections, and with a multi-party system (eleven?) there were signs and faces everywhere. Biblical peoples for this area were the ancient Hittites, Phyrygians, Assyrians, Greeks, Persians, Romans and Arabs. In the 11th century, the Turks from Central Asia set themselves in place as rulers. 99% of the population is Muslim (mostly Sunni) with a population of over 62 million; 0.1% are Christians.

The newer architecture in Turkey is quite colorful, unlike that in Israel or Cairo. Sometimes the different units in the same buildings were painted (or parged) in different colors.

Kusadasi is a holiday resort with lots of large hotels and beaches.

Here's and old and new contrast--the camel ride next to our buses. I'm not sure where this guy is stabled. The Turkish and Israeli hawkers, hustlers and sellers (10 post cards one dolla; bok one dolla) were mild compared to Cairo's--a story I'll tell you later.

All of our tours seemed to have obligatory "approved" shopping stops, and someone gets a percentage of sales, I'm sure. This one was at a rug dealer in Kusadasi who had a very interesting demonstration on how oriental rugs are made. We passed up the $1500 rugs and $4,000 diamond rings in Jerusalem and waited for Egypt to buy $15 cotton t-shirts with names embroidered in hieroglyphics.

The lost hat

I was talking to my daughter after supper tonight to wish her Happy Anniversary (14th). She had just returned from a medical conference in Chicago, thrilled that she neither had a cold or DVT.

"Have you called the airlines about dad's lost hat?" she asked. "No, but that would be a good idea. We're just sick that it's gone. It was the right size, color, warmth, and of course, was a souvenir of the trip."

She then went on to tell me that a colleague they'd met with had lost her cell phone on this last trip and had called the airlines, it had been turned in and was being mailed to her. She also told me that she always takes off the book cover of a new read and puts it in her bag, but had lost one a few months back. She is meticulous about her books (must be hard cover and never a library book). Even though she'd used that suitcase several times since losing the cover, it fell out of the bag in the hotel room. She thought she'd examined every square inch of it.

And a thought came to me. I'd taken my husband's word for it that he'd gone through the suitcases--every zippered pocket. This is a man who can't find the quart of milk in the refrigerator because I moved it 2 inches. So after we hung up, I went up to my closet and took out the suitcases and unzipped and went through them one by one. Nothing. As I put the last one away, I ran my hand through it one more time and felt something. The hat. It was folded up and in a side pocket.