Ephesus Part Two

We then drove to Ephesus, which many of you might remember from a little book called the Bible where St. Paul writes letters to the Ephesians. We took a tour of the ruins of Ephesus, which contained the site of one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, the Temple of Artemis. We only realized this a week or so after the tour, because the guide never mentioned it, and if it hadn’t been for a dinnertime conversation where we realized that we didn’t know all of the Seven Wonders we never would have realized that we had been standing on the path of greatness.

In all, I really enjoyed the ruins. There was an amphitheatre where St. Paul supposedly addressed the Ephesians. They didn’t like what he had to say and you could also see the rocky outcropping where he allegedly fled after they ran him out of town. There was also a library in the town square, right next to a brothel. Our guide explained how there were signs on the way to the town from the port, so that sailors would know the location of both places. The signs had a series of symbols indicating that if you didn’t have enough money for one, you could spend a few hours at the other. Yeah, our guide had all SORTS of tidbits about the whorehouse, but ask her to mention one of the Seven Wonders and she clams up like she’s revealing a state secret.

One really entertaining aspect of the trip was the complete indifference to any of the tour guide’s information the people from the gift shop had. As soon as she would bring us to a new place, they would scatter and perch on the nearest rock, column, or ruin and pose provocatively for pictures. Sometimes these poses involved a hand saucily placed on the hip, or a jaunty thrust of the hip. Other times the poses were more elaborate, arms outstretched between two columns and a smoldering gaze thrown in the camera’s direction. Still other times the poses would be simple, left leg in front of the right, hip cocked, and arms shrugging as if to say, ”Can you believe little ol’ me ended up here?” I should also point out that both male and female shop employees engaged in the posing, and showed little interest in the hundreds of tourists who crowded around them trying to take pictures of the ruins they were blocking.

From the ruins we went to a leather outlet. The fifty or so crew members on the tour were given glasses of iced apple tea and ushered into a small building lined with rows of chairs and a makeshift runway. The lights were lowered, techno music started pumping, and an honest to goodness fashion show was under way. The first model, a petite woman, was very cute and people applauded and discreetly whistled as she modeled a leather jacket. The second model was a bit older and more severe looking. She modeled a tassled jacket that was met with polite applause. Then the third model - the male model - entered and all hell broke loose.

Imagine the best-looking man you know in your everyday life. Now imagine his best friend. Now imagine the best friend’s sophomore year roommate and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the Turkish male model looked like. He was a pretty average looking guy (and I don’t mean to be critical but he had the formations of a gut), but he was greeted like he was Pamela Anderson visiting an army base in Iraq. All the gift shop employees (again, both male and female) screamed, pointed, and fanned themselves whenever he walked onstage. You could tell it had an affect on him, because each time he walked onstage he blushed a little and smiled sheepishly as if to say, “Are you familiar with what attractive people look like?”

But the shoppies went nuts every time he appeared. The guy I was sitting next to held up his camera when the severe model made her fifteenth entrance. He brought the camera up as she made her walk down, as if to get the perfect angle. When she got to the lip of the stage, three feet from where we were, he snatched his camera down and screamed, “Not for you, sweetie!” and then cackled hysterically with his friend. I thought I was stuck in a deleted scene from “Carrie” and looked around for escape routes in case the severe model’s telekinetic powers were unleashed.

But the shoppies’ enthusiasm for the model made the show go by a lot faster than it otherwise would have. Saying that, the show was still probably ten minutes longer than it should have been. I have no idea if the leather was nice or not. We were offered a sixty percent discount and the jackets were still out of my price range, yet none of them would have looked out of place on a TJ Maxx clearance rack. When we were set free in the store I made my way outside in the hopes of scoring some more iced tea. There was none left, so I got back on the bus, sated by my first fashion show (and unwitting visit to one of the Seven Wonders).

The House of the Blessed Virgin

Our ship has repositioned and we are on a brand new itinerary. Today we were in Izmir, Turkey. The ship offered a special tour of the House of the Virgin Mary and the ruins of Ephesus at a special rate, and you better believe Beth and I took advantage of the financial discount.

The day started by meeting in the crew bar. There really isn't much to report about this part of the day, except that all of the gift shop employees took a million pictures of each other and Alexia, one half of a singing duo, has laryngitis.

We got on the bus and drove to our first stop, the House of the Virgin Mary. Or should I say, the Alleged House of the Virgin Mary. I didn't catch the full explanation since my earpiece was cutting in and out, but apparently in the 1700s, a German woman claimed she received an image in a dream that that site was where the Annunciation had happened. Again, I could only hear every other word, so I apologize for not giving you the full story. I am going to look this up on Wikipedia.

Okay, so I just checked out the Internet, and the house is supposedly where the Assumption happened, not the Annunciation, so that is a big difference. St. John is believed to have brought Mary to Ephesus after the crucifixion because it was a safe city, and here she supposedly passed her final years. Also, the German woman who had the visions was a nun named Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich who had never even been to Ephesus. A priest in the late 1800s found the site and realized it matched her descriptions, and that was backed up by the cultural tradition of many local villagers viewing the site as a shrine of Mary. The Catholic Church has not named it as such but they have named it a Holy Place and Pope Benedict visited here during his visit to Turkey last November (Beth informs me that there was a rosary from his visit on display, but I did not see it. I did, however, see a nun carrying a guitar walk around the site, and got excited that she was going to burst into a rousing rendition of "Dominique.")

So all in all, it was a very enjoyable visit, although some people (aka Beth) were unimpressed by the site’s lack of historical veracity. I will continue the rest of the tour description in a later entry, for tomorrow, Brendan “Four Car Accidents Before His Eighteenth Birthday” is driving a scooter on Mykonos. Seems like a good idea.

Pompei

Lava is not the only flowing mass from which one must flee in Pompei.

Penny

Beth and I got some sad news last week. Our dog Penny was hit by a car and killed in Wisconsin. It was tough news to get and made us feel far away from everyone that we loved. It was absolutely an accident and no one’s fault, and we felt awful that Beth’s parents had to be the ones to deal with everything and that we couldn’t be there with them.

Penny was the best dog. She forced us to go out and appreciate Colorado in a way that we wouldn’t have without her, and we had so many fun adventures in the too-short time we had with her. I don’t think there’s a way to talk about losing your dog that isn’t a cliché, but we really were so lucky to have her for the time that we did and we will miss her a whole lot.