Our second stop in Ephesus was on Day 4 of the cruise. The day prior we had a day at sea. That day we laid in the Solarium, the adult only lounge area and pool, and read our books. We lounged like people who have kids never do and I probably won't for another decade. It was good while it lasted. :) I read Kate Morton's
Forgotten Garden (Loved it!) and Mark read
The Miracle of Fr. Kapaun: Priest, Soldier, and Korean War Hero. It's been a while since I've read so this was a treat!
In Ephesus we signed up for the Biblical Ephesus Tour which was scheduled for a full 8 hours. It was a full 8 hours! Our tour guide, Oz (pronounced with long o and not to be confused with Dr. Oz), was a wealth of information. I started to wonder if he was a Christian, but no, apparently he declared himself a Muslim when I was out of earshot. I'm jumping ahead, but at a stall outside Mary's House where they sold religious articles, Oz made sure to point out how "tolerant" the Muslims were to allow the Christians the freedom to sell their wares. He wanted us to go home and tell our families and friends. Riiiight... Consider that checked off the list now.
We took a nice air conditioned bus around town and our first order of business was the ruins of Ephesus. I have to admit that I thought this would be pretty boring, but it turned out to be quite fascinating because Oz had so much information to share with us. We had our trusty hydration backpack (cold water ALL day, people!) and an umbrella I made Mark buy on our way to board the ship in Venice. We looked like the Asian tourists with that umbrella, but I didn't care because it took the edge off. It was blazing hot!!
I have a new appreciation for archaeologists after visiting the ruins. The work they do (in the scorching heat none the less!) is so tedious. From my perspective it's like a nightmare of a jig saw puzzle. The ridiculous part is back in the day, when one building started to fall into ruin they recycled the stone and transported building materials from one site to another. Trying to reconstruct a temple or building is extra tricky under these circumstances! It's so not my bag. There were large areas where similar pieces were lumped together and sometimes they were lucky enough to find some matching. I'm not a fan of puzzles so this whole "put the building together again" would definitely not be happening if I were in charge.
This "street" is assumed to have been a market place. Oz showed us the ruins of a shop and explained that it had a pipe which meant it had running water. That was impressive.
The Library of Celsius. They didn't allow the books to be checked out which is funny to us now because that it the whole point of a library today. When you have
one copy, you're not going to let any old guy walk away with it! On a similar note, I 've heard Protestants claim that Catholic clergy wouldn't let the people read the Bible. You copy the Bible by hand and then loan it out to your neighbor. I think not.
This is the Great Theater. Occasionally there are concerts here. Our guide was talking about how he attended an
Elton John concert in this theater and we were marveling over the idea of getting a piano to this location. We went inside which was pretty cool. Well, it was hotter than hell, but you know what I mean. :)
Current excavation site.
oh.heck.no. There are only a few months out of the year they can work on these sites and apparently it's the hot ones. No thank you.
Mary's House!! I knew what it would look like because Mark and I read a book about it. You can find it
here. I thought the book might be dry, but it was fascinating...the unfolding of events, the prayers and the work to get up the mountain before paved roads and cars was unbelievable. Her house is a small, 2 room dwelling (used to be 3 back when she walked the earth). It currently has an alter with a statue of our Blessed Mother, flowers and then different artifacts from Popes that have visited in the past.
Before we left for our trip, I solicited prayer requests from our homeschool community and friends and we promised to pray for their intentions by name in Mary's House. It was pretty surreal that we were standing in the same place the Mother of God fixed dinner and the like. I had 6 pages with the emails of prayer requests so Mark and I split the stack, knelt down on the stone floor in front of the alter and prayed. Some others paused to pray, but there was mostly a slow, quite stream of people shuffling by.
It was a humbling and beautiful experience to be trusted with these prayers and I just know that Mary listened to each and every heart felt prayer for healing, safety or conversion. I felt like that little child that had an overwhelming day and when she saw her own mother she was so relieved she just broke down in tears. I was overwhelmed by the trip, the prayers, being in such a holy place. leaving the kids behind, and all the ups and downs of Ellie that I just barely kept my tears in check.
I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that Our Blessed Mother loves us more than our own earthly mothers and that she would take all the suffering and pain contained in those prayer intentions and take it to her Son. I prayed for those intentions to be answered according to His will and that if they aren't to be "resolved" in the here and the now, for unfailing grace to bear the suffering and an increase in holiness to keep eyes fixed on Heaven. It will all be okay. In this life or the next. What more could we ask for?
This is the side view where you can see the two rooms joined in the corner.
Besides Mary's house, another selling point of this excursion was that Mass was to be celebrated!! There was a Polish Franciscan Capuchin Friar who said Mass for us in English in an AIR CONDITIONED chapel not far from Mary's House. The English was a serious bonus. I read the Psalms during Mass which was a first for me. There were maybe a dozen of us from the tour (not everyone received Communion) and it was an intimate, beautiful experience.
A prayer wall which comprised of something like chain link fence with papers rolled up and stuffed in the holes. I did not roll nor stuff the intentions given to me because Our Blessed Mother already heard them and it seemed impersonal to leave prayers in a public place. They were dingy and dirty too as they were left out in the elements. Not my style.
After Mass we drove down the mountain towards the town where we were to eat a "biblical" meal at this banquet hall type place. It was an upper room which felt very biblical in itself. :)
The food was interesting. I didn't try everything because of the gluten, but I did eat some green beans, some cheese, fish and vegetables, and the most bitter salad I've ever tasted. The thought still makes me shudder and my mouth water. Afterwards we had a few minutes to shop and then it was off to our 2nd to last stop, a Turkish carpet store.
I thought this would be a lame stop and it was. They did tell us how the carpets are made and they even had a young woman in the shop demonstrating the technique, but apparently the real work is done by young girls or ladies in their homes. It was impressive, but I was not thrilled when we had to sit through the sales pitch.
Our whole group sat down on the seats surrounding the room and then our drink order was placed. Hot Turkish tea or something they called apple tea which thankfully tasted like apple juice because I hate tea was served. After the drinks and the carpets were displayed, we were encouraged/forced to take our shoes off and feel the carpets. Mark took the "make yourself at home" to heart and sprawled out on the carpets like a child.
Seriously??!! The love of my life is plenty embarrassing stateside in our normal life, but this took the prize. If he were under 12 it might have not been so bad, but not when you're on the other side of 30? I'm just saying...
After the rolling on the carpet the men lurking on the perimeter flocked to us tourists to figure out how they could get us to go home with a carpet. The carpets were very good quality and beautiful, but we did not have any money budgeted for a Turkish carpet and I finally had to be blunt and tell "our" sales guy that under no circumstances were we buying a carpet to be shipped, free or not, home. After that we were allowed to walk out unmolested. :)
The last thing we did before heading back was to stop at St. John's Basilica. Think ruins, not church. St. John's Tomb was located here, but apparently his remains had been taken elsewhere. I was hot, tired and hungry at this point so I don't really remember where exactly. Like the umbrella?
When we got back to the place where we picked up the bus, there were tons of shops so we decided to try to find t-shirt souvenirs for Uncle Steve and also for Mark. This turned out to be more difficult than expected because the men selling stuff were completely over the top pushy and it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that we
were molested by the guy that sold us the shirts. He hugged us because
"I like you. You my friend. I give you good deal. I just open shop today. For you..(.insert him awkwardly hugging us)
I give you good deal." His "good deal" was 140 Euros for 2 t-shirts which for arguments sake, let's just say that was $140...FOR 2 T-SHIRTS!! Um, no thanks. I laughed and told him two days ago we bought a t-shirt in Croatia for $7 and we were not paying that kind of price. We did compromise on 20 Euros for both and then he tried to shuffle us into the back room to get us to buy a leather jacket too. We hightailed it out of the there and wouldn't so much as even think of making eye contact or anything resembling interest with any other shop owners until we got back to the ship. We didn't know buying a shirt from those "tolerant" Muslims could be so exhausting.
We had to hustle back to shower to get to dinner on time. Dinner turned out to be an interesting event as well. Let me explain...
When Mark booked our cruise he requested a table for two so that we didn't have to make nice with strangers when we finally were going to be able to eat without having to break up arguments, tell people how many bites of vegetables they had to eat or clean up spilled drinks. When we were being escorted to our table the first night (my birthday none the less) it became clear even before we reached our destination that the waiter was not taking us to a private table. I turned right around to Mark and said that I was not sitting there. There was no foot stomping, but I was unprepared and too tired to make conversation with total strangers, so we went to the hostess stand and tried to work it out with the dining room manager. We were told that if we waited until the dining room closed at 7 (dinner began at 6:30) we could have any 2 top table that was left. He explained that they get 600 requests for private tables and they have only 10. I figured we were hosed, but we did end up sitting by ourselves, but within 6 feet of another table for 2. Que the doomed music...
At that table for 2 sat a couple from NYC, either Brooklyn or Queens, which doesn't really matter except to say that they were rude and pushy. Mark said he didn't even have to ask where they were from, he just knew based on their personality. Just FYI, Mark loathes overnights in NYC because it's overpriced, loud, crowded and he says the people are rude. I'm sure not all are rude, but go there enough and your perception is that city dwelling New Yorkers are rude.
Because Josh and Anna (oh, we were on a first name basis after the first night and I'll tell you why in a minute) were pushy and aggressive, they were assigned to the table for the rest of the week. Because we were polite and understanding, we had to show up at 7 every night and hope for the best. It all worked out and we ended up sitting by ourselves every night, but the ironic part is that Josh and Anna (who were in desperate need of a private table if you recall) couldn't wait for us to show up each evening so they could pounce on us for the details of our day. Mark commented later to me that if they wanted to talk to people, they should have sat at a group table so that would free up their space for people who truly wanted to be alone. I'm just sayin'...
Stay tuned because up next is my FAVORITE...Santorini, Greece!!! When I say "up next" in reality that means in a few days...hopefully. :)
