Exploring Izmir with our boy

Since Evan arrived last Wednesday we've been sharing our city with him. We haven't got all that much done, what with his mild jet lag and our extreme sloth, but we've been enjoying ourselves anyway.

Ron (who teaches English to a couple of classes of people who know it fairly well) had the brilliant idea of asking his students to tell him where they'd take our son if they wanted to show him the sights. He collected a list of 15 restaurants and a bunch of places to visit, so we've been working our way through the list (with a few of our own favourites thrown in).

Wednesday night we dragged our sleepy kid out into our dark and rainy neighbourhood to visit the Asensör restaurant, a couple of blocks away. I mentioned it way back on Sept. 7, when the weather was still hot and sunny. It has a fantastic view over the city and the harbour, and pretty good food as well. Evan managed to stay awake long enough to enjoy his first Turkish meal and the view, and then fell into bed and slept for 12 hours.

It's been a bit of a blur since then. One day - I think it was Thursday - Evan and I took a ferry across the harbour to the northwest end of town and bussed partway back to where I thought we might find the Tepekule tumulus, the remains of the earliest settlement in Izmir. Turned out I was wrong by a couple of kilometers, but that meant we had a walk along a busy highway that runs beside the seashore until we got to the Bayraklı marketplace. And there it was, a fenced-in vineyard where they've been growing grapes for at least 5000 years, maybe 7000. Not much to see just now; there are excavations going on, but not in the winter so the gate was locked and all we could see was a grassy area with some grapevines. Still, we could see why people would settle there: there's a freshwater stream flowing out of the mountains, a hill behind the settled area where the townsfolk could flee for protection in case of trouble, a wide fertile plain spreading out in front, and the sea for fish and transportation. Folk were writing there at least 5000 years ago, although there were a few dark ages when they forgot. Homer was probably born there. Even though the site was closed, it felt rather wonderful to be walking over ground that Homer had touched.

Thursday night we dragged Evan to the church choir practice, where he wowed them all by doing a violin obligatto where I'd been supposed to play the recorder. Then out for supper and beer with our parish priest, and home to let the kid fall into bed again.

Friday night the Izmir symphony gave a concert at their hall downtown - a magical performance of the Dvorak cello concerto by a German cellist, and Mahler's 1st symphony. It was our first concert since we settled here, but it won't be our last. It's a good little orchestra and they apparently get great soloists.

Saturday Ron invited Evan and me to drop in on one of the classes that had planned our itinerary. We were supposed to give them a report on what we'd seen so far, but we spent so much time just talking about families, our countries, and other stuff people need to know about each other that we didn't get to that. I think we all enjoyed it, though. Then we explored a little corner of the huge Kemeraltı market, which stretches from the sea to the Agora, the ruins of the Greco-Roman marketplace and town square. That's another thing I love about this place: the market is where it's always been, and the same families have probably been selling the same things at the same stalls for a couple of thousand years. It makes you think... Somehow wars and natural disasters can't defeat the human spirit.

Sunday night Evan helped out at our church's Christmas service of lessons and carols. Some Turkish members of the choir had never sung this music, or even any music, before, but they did a more than acceptable job. Our volunteer temporary choir leader had worked unbelievably hard getting us into shape, and I hope we didn't let him down. We had a good crowd. In Turkey Christmas is a favourite celebration and even non-Christians turn up at church events. You don't hear much Christmas music around town or see many decorations, and you certainly don't get the buy-buy-buy pressure we experience in North America, but there's plenty of Christmas spirit.

Yesterday - Monday - we took a trip out to the Teleferik, a cable car that runs up a mountain to the south of the city. There's a magnificent view of the town and harbour, and a quite acceptable restaurant. It's obviously set up to handle hordes of visitors, but yesterday was so cold we were among a dozen or so visitors. It was Ron's 60th birthday, so we had his birthday dinner up there among the pines and the chickadees.

It is %^#$*& cold just now. It was so cold last night that I wore a woolen hat to bed. We have a great fleece-stuffed comforter that usually keeps us more than warm enough, but last night I was thinking of getting up and putting on another blanket. It was far too cold to get out of our warmish bed for that, though. Today we take a sea cruise to Chios to get our visas renewed again - just the thing for a brisk winter's day. And then tomorrow we rush back here, catch the plane for Istanbul, and meet Rachel. We'll have a couple of days doing the sights there, then back here for Christmas.

I'll add pictures when I manage to get my guys to download them from their cameras - mine ran out of battery a while ago and I've only just remembered to recharge it.

Next installment: the Lewis family hits Istanbul. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, check out our church's web page (see the link in the sidebar).