An American Life in Istanbul

Current Mood: Esctatic

On a whim I decided to go to Izmir this weekend. I am not sure why, but I didn’t feel too much like sticking around Istanbul, so I bought an extremely over priced plane ticket and took the 55 minute flight to Izmir, in the south of Turkey. For the purposes of this entry, you can reference the map below which contains the places I went to.

Before going, I called our partners in Izmir, Arcom, to see if they were available for the weekend. If you remember from the Hannover Messe, there were the three guys not from my company there with us: Ismael, Sakir and Ahmet (Ahmet is the boss). I called Sakir (Ismael doesn’t speak english and Ahmet’s is weak) and he said yes I should come, and that I could stay with him.

So Friday night was rather easy going. I managed to have a 45 minute conversation with Ismael while we smoked nargile in Kordon (the seaside area of Izmir). Everytime I meet Ismael I am amazed. He left school at age 10 to work on compressors, which he has been doing ever since. He now in charge of all the technical aspects (including design) of Arcom’s compressors. He also some how manages to communicate with me successfully despite knowing very little English.

Saturday, we went diving! I apparently picked the weekend of the company dive trip. Since Arcom makes high pressure compressors (a lot of breathing air appliacations), they have a lot of dive schools as customers. So we visited one such dive school. The whole company, except for two guys who had to be on call, piled on to a bus in what had to be 90-95 degree wheather, and drove one hour to Cesme. Because it was so hot, they kept both sets of doors open the entire way Here is a picture of me on the boat. I love Turkey!

And here is a picture of the Arcom compressor that they sold to the dive club:

Diving was really great. Being on a boat was great. Relaxing and doing nothing was great. That evening Sakir and I tried to go out but we were so beat from the sun that we went to sleep early.

The next day we went to Efes (Ephesus in Greek). Efes was amazing! Just to give you some random information about Efes, it was the site of the temple of artemis, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. John the apostle moved there after Jesus’ death. The Virgin Mary also came with him as she was entrusted to his care upon Jesus’ death. What is believed to be the last place she lived before she died is very near to Efes and I also visited it. It was the second most important city in the Byzantine empire after Constantinople. After it’s harbor filled with silt from the nearby river, the city rapidly declined.

My reaction to the city was a very positive one. It was very hot so we did not spend too much time there ( we had an afternoon appointment with the beach at a luxury resort where Sakir had sold a compressor), but I was awed. Not much of the city is left, but what is left is amazing, as is the setting that the city is in. The whole atmosphere that surrounds you as you walk down the main road, flanked by 2000 year old buildings, is incredible. The rolling hills with their sparse trees and the brown vegetation, seperated by miles on all sides from any buildings, make it one of the most charming ruins I have visited. Anyone visiting Turkey really must go. Here is a picture of the ampitheatre. You can see they even managed to unearth one of the ancient cranes used to build cities back then.

Here are two of my favorite pictures from Efes. For the first, just read the caption on the toilet sign. I didn’t go in, but I can only imagine what it must have been like in there.

And this picture… let me just give you the defintion of genuine:

genuine
adjective
1.	not fake or counterfeit; “a genuine Picasso”; “genuine leather” [ant: counterfeit]

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University

 

The best is when they follow you yelling, “my friend, my brother, come, genuine fake watches”

After the historical stuff we went and relaxed on the beach. Did some snorkeling, some swimming. It was too hot to really do anything. Towards the end of the day we went into Kusadasi, a nearby city. This city was incredible. It is built on the steep hills surrounding a small harbor. It was very nice, but a bit touristy. Fun all the same. After that, Sakir dropped me at the airport. Sakir was an excellent host and I look forward to visiting Izmir several more times over the next year. Oh, here is a picture of Kusadasi:

Lastly, here is a link to the rest of the photos from the weekend:

 

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