Friday, November 12, 2010

Weekend Away

We had a long weekend at the end of October for Republic Day.  Sim and I headed off to the airport in the pouring rain. (After some difficulty getting a cab, we were rescued by Maura who drove us to the taxi stand above the top gate and even told the driver to put out his cigarette.  I had naively followed the instructions given in our orientation materials that you call the guards at the main gate and they'll get a taxi for you.  When I called I was told "Taksi, Yok."  Which basically means "Taxi, no way."

The driver was great, skillfully weaving in and out of traffic, despite hard rain and lots of cars.  A short one hour flight to Izmir, arriving just as it was getting dark.  We had drama picking up our rental car. First trying to find the counter, then schlepping over to the international terminal, where I discovered I had left my laptop by the door at domestic arrivals when I looked at the information about the rental car.  I had Sim do an OJ Simpson impression running ahead of me back to the other terminal.  Luckily my laptop was safely with the security guards.  In some ways I was more worried about losing the folder with my students; exam papers that was in the case than I was about losing the HP computer that's still driving me crazy, bouncing to the Turkish keyboard all the time and wiping out my work when I brush my wrist on the mousepad.

The drive to Selcuk is easy and quick except for a little more hassle with the toll booth that the rental agent had sold us a card for, because apparently there are no toll booth attendants after 6:00 or something.  But it seems there was no money on the card.  Sim got in a screaming match with the guy who came out from the building and then we paid another ten lira to put money on the card.

But we arrived at the Hotel Bella where we stayed 2 nights quite happily.  We toured the Ephesus ruins and the ruin of the Basilica of St. John which was across the street from the hotel and the column which is pretty much all that remains of the temple of Artemis which was one of the wonders of the ancient world.  The weather on Saturday was spectacular so we drove to the seaside town of Kusadasi and walked along the waterfront, had lunch and sat in the sunshine.  Then we went to the hillside village of Sirince where we spent a delightful night staying in a renovated terrace house owned by a woman I work with.  It was cool in the evening and so after watching the sunset on the terrace we sat and drank wine and read in the living room by the fireplace.

We arrived at the airport for our 2:00 flight  and went to have lunch in the restaurant.  The TV was broadcasting news of the bombing in Taksim Square that morning.  I was looking up the words scrolling at the bottom of the screen to get the details.  I didn't have to look up bomba.  There was speculation that it was the Kurdish rebel group whose self-imposed ceasefire was scheduled to end the next day.  The Republic Day parade was happening that morning and as in the past the target was the police van stationed there.  15 police were injured and 20 civilians, but no one was killed.  When we got back to school,  I was surprised how little talk there was about it.

Also when watching the TV, we discovered that we were an hour earlier for our flight than we thought.  Turkey went off Daylight savings time that morning.

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