The following day, Wednesday the 28th, we had to wake up super early! Our tour was leaving at 7:30am! So we got up early and ate a little bit then headed out to Izmir. Our tour guide's name was Alif, but he let us call him Ali. Again, he seemed to be exactly what I thought a Turkish guy would be like. He was funny, but didn't laugh at his jokes and didn't make any hidden or unintended jokes.
Our first stop was about an hour and a half away, near the ruins of Ephesus. We were going to visit the Virgin Mary's house. On our way there I couldn't help but compare the scenery to that of Utah. Driving down the highway I was reminded of driving down I-15 from Salt Lake to Provo. It really did pay a very close resemblance to I-15. The major difference was that instead of an LDS Chapel every 2 minutes, there was a Muslim Mosque every 2 minutes. It was a scenic drive...I slept most of the way though.
Once we arrived at the Virgin Mary's house, we had to wait in a super long line to go through it. The house was very small and there wasn't a lot of room. Only about 3 or 4 people could be in the front room at once. This is where it is thought Mary came and lived after the crucifixion of Christ. It was cool to be able to visit this very sacred site. Just outside the house was a fountain. The tour guide gave all of us these little clay jars so we could fill it with water from the Virgin Mary's house. We did that, but the little clay jars leaked A LOT!! We had to improvise when taking the jars home.
My favorite part about visiting the Virgin Mary's house was the wall of wishes just outside the house. There was a wall where you could make a wish or leave a prayer. You would write it on a tissue or something and tie it onto the other ones hanging or onto the wall somehow. It was really cool to see all the wishes and prayers that people had left.
After we visited the Virgin Mary's house, we headed down to Ephesus. It was cool to see Ottoman ruins after having just seen Greek and before that Roman ruins. This is the place where the Ephesians lived and where the apostle Paul preached to the Ephesians. The ruins were in pretty good shape. There was also a little interactive play about gladiators from back during the Ephesians time.
After that we headed to a Turkish rug factory. It was actually really interesting to see how they make these intricate designs all by hand. They also showed us how they gathered silk from the cocoons. The people there were very friendly as well. They gave us all something to drink, I had the apple iced tea, it was delicious!
It was a very long day but a pretty cool day of seeing lots of interesting sites! Overall, I would go back to Turkey, in fact I plan to visit Istanbul next summer!
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