Got off the bus on the way home from church this morning and heard the most unearthly drumming and tootling. There, just ahead of me, was a parade of gentlemen dressed in what I assume are Ottoman uniforms. The ones in front were marching with swords, swinging from side to side and looking fierce. Behind them were some equally fierce bell-janglers, then some trumpet and horn players, then some drummers, and finally a guy in the back of a pickup whacking a couple of bass drums. The truck had the web address of our local lokmaci - maker of donuts in syrup given out free in front of homes or businisses in memory of a departed loved one I caught them on video - you can watch a couple of the little segments here.
Now we really must leave to go on our solar eclipse tour.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Bergama
One fine warm day this week we decided to rent a car and head north to check out the area around Bergama, about 100 km from Izmir, to see if we could find any locally-made carpets. We left the highway and headed into the part of the mountains where we'd heard Turkmen shepherds wove traditional patterns.
Almost first thing we got a clue that there were plenty of sheep in the area - this mother and her two lambs so young their umbilical cords were still attached. Mother moved away with great dignity on being photographed. Lambs tried their first gambols - quite successfully, too, if a bit wobbly.
We didn't find any weavers on our way to Bergama, but we settled into a hotel highly (and rightly) recommended by Lonely Planet and stared out the window. This is what greeted us: a full frontal view of the Acropolis.
That evening we walked around the lower city and found a carpet shop - one of several, but the man looking after this one seemed particularly friendly and relaxed. He showed us dozens of carpets, including this and some others made in the area from traditional designs. We were quite pleased that his starting prices seemed to be in our range. We'll be back.
The next morning we went to the museum across the street. This is such a quiet time of the year that we were the first visitors of the day - while we were there another tourist couple arrived, and that was it.
There were a lot of the usual statues and things from the Hellenistic and Roman periods of the town, but there were also a very few Byzantine items. I was struck by how Celtic they looked, including this bit of architectural ornamentation.
Then we went to the Acropolis. Started in Hellenistic times (after Alexander the Great & before the Romans) and renewed by the emperor Hadrian, it's far more interesting to explore than Athens' Acropolis. You can climb over everything and even break your neck if you choose to be careless.
This arch looked down over the city, a monument to the Romans' ingenuity in discovering this simple and elegant structure.
Then we headed to the Aesclepion, an ancient wellness centre. Galen, the 'father of medicine', was born in Pergamon and came back after training at all the best medical schools of the time. He became famous treating his home-town's gladiators. He also worked at the Aesclepion, using both physical and spiritual methods to help heal.
The waters of the healing spring still flow and are still used by local people today as a remedy for whatever ails you.
The Aesclepion still seems to be a good place to live, at least as far as tortoises are concerned. This was the second we saw. He/she was heading straight for one of the healing pools, perhaps looking for some juicy worms or greens or something on the way.
On our way out of town we discovered the carpet weavers' co-op building and took a tour. It was set up to display and sell the local weavers' work - the village women get almost all the proceeds. We saw how they process silk (they raise silk worms here) and how they know the carpets. There were some beautiful designs, slightly more expensive than the shop in town, we thought, but excellent quality. We'll definitely be back.
Tomorrow we're off again, this time to Capadoccia to see the solar eclipse and a bit of the local scenery. So stay tuned.
Almost first thing we got a clue that there were plenty of sheep in the area - this mother and her two lambs so young their umbilical cords were still attached. Mother moved away with great dignity on being photographed. Lambs tried their first gambols - quite successfully, too, if a bit wobbly.
We didn't find any weavers on our way to Bergama, but we settled into a hotel highly (and rightly) recommended by Lonely Planet and stared out the window. This is what greeted us: a full frontal view of the Acropolis.
That evening we walked around the lower city and found a carpet shop - one of several, but the man looking after this one seemed particularly friendly and relaxed. He showed us dozens of carpets, including this and some others made in the area from traditional designs. We were quite pleased that his starting prices seemed to be in our range. We'll be back.
The next morning we went to the museum across the street. This is such a quiet time of the year that we were the first visitors of the day - while we were there another tourist couple arrived, and that was it.
There were a lot of the usual statues and things from the Hellenistic and Roman periods of the town, but there were also a very few Byzantine items. I was struck by how Celtic they looked, including this bit of architectural ornamentation.
Then we went to the Acropolis. Started in Hellenistic times (after Alexander the Great & before the Romans) and renewed by the emperor Hadrian, it's far more interesting to explore than Athens' Acropolis. You can climb over everything and even break your neck if you choose to be careless.
This arch looked down over the city, a monument to the Romans' ingenuity in discovering this simple and elegant structure.
The real treasure of Pergamon, as Bergama was known in ancient times, was its library. When Marc Antony looted it to give to Cleopatra, he took 20,000 scrolls. Parchment was invented here, because the jealous Egyptians stopped shipping papyrus to Pergamon.
Then we headed to the Aesclepion, an ancient wellness centre. Galen, the 'father of medicine', was born in Pergamon and came back after training at all the best medical schools of the time. He became famous treating his home-town's gladiators. He also worked at the Aesclepion, using both physical and spiritual methods to help heal.
The waters of the healing spring still flow and are still used by local people today as a remedy for whatever ails you.
The Aesclepion still seems to be a good place to live, at least as far as tortoises are concerned. This was the second we saw. He/she was heading straight for one of the healing pools, perhaps looking for some juicy worms or greens or something on the way.
On our way out of town we discovered the carpet weavers' co-op building and took a tour. It was set up to display and sell the local weavers' work - the village women get almost all the proceeds. We saw how they process silk (they raise silk worms here) and how they know the carpets. There were some beautiful designs, slightly more expensive than the shop in town, we thought, but excellent quality. We'll definitely be back.
Tomorrow we're off again, this time to Capadoccia to see the solar eclipse and a bit of the local scenery. So stay tuned.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
To Greece and Back
We're back from Greece and wrapped up in Izmir life again. I haven't finished tidying up the pictures on Flickr yet, but I've got more to write about here so I urge you to go there to catch up with what we did and saw: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesliel. It was great! I like Greece.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Taze! Taze!
This is a picture I've been wanting to get for months. Shadi took it in her first week here. This guy walks around our area every day with a tray of gevrek (called simit in Istanbul - big donuts covered in sesame seed) shouting "Taze! Taze!" (Fresh! Fresh!). He also delivers the mail.
We have a roommate
Life has become even more pleasant the last week with the addition of a young American to our little family.
Shadi Khadivi is a Fulbright scholar, an architect working in New York who was born in New Mexico and grew up in Texas (daughter of an Iranian family). Her Canadian partner Jason discovered my Flickr photos and got in touch a couple of months ago. We emailed back and forth and soon felt comfortable inviting Shadi to stay with us while she found a place to stay here. Then it became clear that this was the right place for her.
Shadi's work here is to document the old houses of the Basmane district, and the people who live in them, through photos and art. It's an "interesting" part of town, not the sort of place tourists feel comfortable in, the home of some of the people who have come here from eastern Turkey to find work. There are still a few pre-1922 houses standing (using the term loosely) there, and there's lots of life in and around them. Shadi discovered the area during an earlier trip and want to get to know it well.
It's good having her around. She's quiet and doesn't get in the way at all. She's also intelligent and interesting. I'm looking forward to learning lots from her.
This last week we've had a couple of chances to explore some of the Izmir we know with her, but she's quickly making friends of her own and going places with them, too. She's also taking Turkish classes every morning, and rapidly catching up with us on the language front.
Another adventure this week was getting my new cell phone working. The ones we borrowed from Begüm's family were showing their age a bit, so we picked up a new one for Ron at the Rome airport, and I found one for me on eBay that Shadi brought with her. It was properly unlocked and equipped to function here outside the U.S., but I couldn't find any way of getting it to work with my Turkcell SIM card. So I went to a phone shop, who sent me to a Turkcell office. The woman at the desk there spoke very fast and responded to my "Slowly please, I don't know much Turkish" by talking louder and faster. Finally she said "Do you have a Turkish friend?" "Yes." "Well come back with him, then. Goodbye."
So the next day my friend Emmanuel gave me a whole morning. We went to another Turkcell place and learned that they couldn't help us - go to Alsancak. Emmanuel checked at another Turkcell place, and they said Alsancak was wrong - go to Çankaya. Then he asked at a phone shop and they told us not to let Turkcell touch the phone - they'd break it for sure. The guy at the phone shop put a SIM card from another company, AVEA, into my phone and it worked properly. So we got an AVEA card and I have a new phone. I could never have done it without my friend Emmanuel. (He spent the afternoon helping Shadi get a bank account and a work permit. What a guy!)
In a few minutes we're leaving for Athens. We need to get out of the country to renew our visas again, so we thought we'd do some sightseeing in mainland Greece for a change.
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