Earthquakes & other moving events

I'm weeks behind in this blog, thanks to a faulty ethernet port that was keeping me from connecting well to the Internet. But that's fixed, thanks to a techie friend-of-a-friend, and not too soon, either.

Today I woke up with a jolt. Actually I'd been thinking about getting up for some time (it was 8:45), but the bed was warm and comfortable and it's getting pretty cool in the apartment these days. But then the earth moved, and moved, and kept on moving, and I thought I'd rather be close to my Ron just then.

That was the first shock. It was 5.7, according to the TV. Throughout the morning we cocooned in our cozy living room and watched the reflections in the glass door of the china cabinet move and listened to the glasses jingle as more little jiggles happened. Then, just before 1 p.m., there were a couple more big ones - 5.9 and 5.6 - and things began to settle down.

The news says there was almost no damage, and the only injuries were to people who jumped off their balconies in panic. I can understand that. There's something crazy-making about the solid floor moving under your feet. And I think about Kashmir, where the aftershocks of their quake are bigger than what we're going through here.

The Kandilli Earthquake Observatory has a page listing the most recent seismic events in Turkey here, although it's not updated as often as one might like. The USGS page is more up to date.

Meanwhile, we've been having a good life here.

1. First ruins - Sardis
On the first day of Ramazan, Oct. 5, we had a free day so we rented a car and headed off into the countryside east of Izmir. We drove for about 1 1/2 hours through a former river valley (the seacost here is rising rapidly, so the river has diverted to the north), the home of the Lydian civilization that flourished about 700-500 BCE. The Lydians invented coinage to make it easier to handle the plentiful gold they were graced with. I found it interesting looking at the rocks around there, rocks that reminded me of the Kootenays with their rich red and green iron deposits, sulphur showings and quartz veins. I could almost see a sign over the mountains: "There's gold in them thar hills."

We stopped our eastward travel in the little village of Sart, the former metropolis of Sardis. The ruins of the Greco-Roman city are supposed to be fantastic, complete with amphitheatre and synagogue and all sorts of interesting things, but we got diverted to the temple of Artemis at the other end of town. It was quite wonderful and enough for one day. We poked all over the ruins and marvelled at a civilization that would throw such resources into a temple. And - to my great delight - we were adopted by a charming (and clean!) kitten who toured the site in my arms or frolicking at my heels. Fortunately she abandoned us for a German tour group just as I was about to make my plea to bring her home.

After deciding to leave the rest of the ruins for another day, we headed back west and a bit north to the city of Manisa, which has the last mosque designed by the great architect Sinan around 1580. We never did find it, but we took a long drive through a mountaintop park, looking for a shortcut to Izmir that doesn't exist. It was wonderful being high in the mountains again. I miss the high places.

One of the great pleasures that day was quite unexpected. Ron needed to stop for a little midafternoon snooze, so I wandered down the roadside looking at rocks and anthills and other wonders. Finally I came upon a pomegranate tree full of ripe fruit. I've never really enjoyed pomegranates before, but I picked one and started sucking the seeds. What wonderful, refreshing tart juice! And it was great fun having a seed-spitting contest with Ron when he woke up.

2. Ramazan
The month of Ramazan (Ramadan in the rest of the Muslim world) started Oct 5. That may have been why the other drivers were worse than usual during our expedition that day - they were suffering from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. They certainly were grouchy.

I'm not sure how many Turks observe Ramazan, but I think the majority does in our neighbourhood. From sunrise to sunset they eat and drink nothing. They also don't smoke, and are supposed to refrain from swearing and sexual relations. An hour or so before sunrise (actually closer to 3:30 a.m.) drummers make their way through the neighbourhood beating their drums so loudly that the car alarms go off, waking people up so they can have a good breakfast before dawn. It's amazing how quickly it becomes possible to sleep through all that. When we did get up to have a look we noticed quite a few lights coming on around us. And then at sunset a gun goes off to let people know they can eat again, and all the wonderful smells that have been building up around us give way to the sound of clattering dishes. There's a beautiful bread that's baked only at this time of year (a huge flat loaf costs .25 YTL) - delicious when fresh from the oven, but as soon as it's cool it begins to go stale. People seem to focus on food at this time of year. The month will end Nov. 2 with Seker Bayram - sugar feast - when the kids come door-to-door looking for candy (and the drummers turn up looking for a handout too).

Even if they don't really fast during Ramazan, most people seem to give up drinking alcohol. We've noticed quite a number of bars shut down for this month. The one near us is using the time to refinish its furniture. Some little restaurants close, too, and the number of street sellers seems way down.

3. More ruins and a concert
Saturday the 8th we enjoyed a most wonderful experience: a concert in the ancient amphitheatre of Ephesus. We haven't done a real tour of Ephesus yet, but this was a suitable introduction to it. The amphitheatre was probably the same one where the image-makers of Ephesus threatened to riot against the apostle Paul, who was ruining their business. It could seat about 20,000 in its heyday, and even now, with the most dangerous ruins closed off, it holds about 15,000. It was close to full for this concert, Verdi's Requiem performed by the orchestra of a university here augmented by a German orchestra, with a 150-voice German choir and 4 Izmiri soloists. Beautiful performance of wonderful music, and the acoustics are so great in that place that we could hear every note. Wow!



4. A brush with officialdom
A while ago we got a notice that we should do something or other or be fined. We showed it to our landlords and they seemed really concerned. Apparently it said we should tell the local officials who we were. We hadn't realized that every Turk registers their location with the police and tells them when they move. The previous tenant of our apartment had registered in a new location, so the police wanted to know who was living here now.
The Akgüls got the forms we needed to fill out and helped us complete them, then took us to see the muhtar, the head of the district we live in. We were welcomed into his tiny office and sat while the Akgüls carried on a spirited discussion with the muhtar - a dignified older gentleman - and his assistant. This ended when the room filled with police officers, one of whom had shiny gold buttons and trim and was greeted by the muhtar with kisses on both cheeks. Turns out this was the new chief of police of Konak, the part of Izmir we live in (Izmir is kind of like Metropolitan Toronto used to be, with lots of separate municipalities forming one big city). He was visiting all the muhtars of his area, finding out what their concerns were and how things were going generally. So we were all ushered out of the little office into the park outside, and white plastic chairs appeared, and we all sat around in a circle making polite conversation. If it hadn't been Ramazan there would have been glasses of tea for everyone, but the chief said he was fasting so we didn't have refreshments.
Anyway, the general consensus of the muhtar and the chief of police was that we should register with the police at the foreigners' office downtown. So off we all went to the foreigners' office, but when it turned out that we were happy with being tourists and didn't want permanent residents' permits, they weren't interested. I guess most tourists stay in hotels and the police get copies of the hotel registrations, keeping track of foreigners that way. After that I got us registered with the British consul so at least someone will know who and where we are, in case of emergency. The earthquakes have made me glad I did thatç

There's lots more going on, but this is enough for you to have to read for now. Stay tuned. And have a look at our October pictures here.