Day 9: Ephesus

You know you’re so foreign when the guy with the automatic rifle checking identification just takes one look at you and waves you through.

Today we visited some of the major tourist spots around western Turkey. Our first stop was the House of the Virgin Mary. It’s certainly a beautiful site, set up on a mountain covered in dense forest. As with all things spiritually-focused, I found myself contemplating the dichotomies of the religious and secular worlds, and the elements of humanity that allow religious belief to develop.

Ephesus was next. It’s an archaeological site that was inhabited by many peoples for over 2500 years, but mainly exhibits Greek and Roman architecture from roughly the time of Alexander through Hadrian.

For me, Ephesus was everything that the Acropolis wasn’t. Some areas were roped off, but the majority of the ruins are directly accessible. You can walk right up to stone columns and sit on walls that are two thousand years old. You can stand in the places where people made their homes, shops… and toilets. You can find a seat in the amphitheater and hear someone talk from the stage two dozen feet below. And it’s huge… at least five times the size of the Acropolis just in the areas you can get to. It was a real city, with people living and doing business, and you can see the remnants of it here and now.

Dinner was Şirince, another small mountain town with a tourism focus. I got Turkish ice cream from one of the multitude of vendors. The girls went wine tasting; the last vendor we stopped at taught us backgammon, which is a popular pastime here in the cafes.

Our last stop of the night was at the Nesin Mathematics Village. It’s a sort of summer camp for kids where they learn math and philosophy, mostly from volunteer teachers. The students direct their own learning, are assigned no homework or tests, and are granted no diplomas. Tucked away in the mountains, it felt like a cross between a Buddhist temple and the X-Men School for the Gifted. It was a very neat place to experience, with tremendously noble goals. It’s also one of the places that the current dictatorial regime is working to shut down.