Loos and Libraries

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  Ephesus, Turkey
Friday, March 7, 2008

Ephesus is one of the best preserved ancient ruins sights in Turkey. Cameron and I had heard about it from several people before we hit the country. We weren't sure what to expect but we were hoping it would be worth the 10 Lira each. Apo dropped us at the entrance (it turned out to be the last successful trip his Merc minibus would make). We wandered in past the many market shops selling souveniers. I bought a hat - to replace the one that got nicked in Egypt. It was the first hat with a draw string I had seen since. We also bought an English map-guide book to help us understand what ruins we were seeing. Two good buys for the day.
 
The first thing that came to mind when I saw the Ephesus ruins scenery was that show "Xena Warrior Princess". It was easy to imagine a bunch of crazy armoured-skirt men weilding swords jumping out from behind some columns and arches. I felt ready to shoot them though - with my camera

The main street in ancient Ephesus

. Ha ha ha. Ok so maybe that was a crap joke. Actually, I am finding that my humour is going unappreciated here in Turkey. Today I told someone it was Pide O'clock. Pide is a type of Turkish pizza. I tried to explain that in Australia we have Beer O'clock. By this time the funny had gone.
 
Back to Ephesus though. As you can see from the photos there were some amazingly well preserved temple arches, cobbled streets lined with columns and even the public toilets had been restored. These were quiet interesting because you would have  been sitting side by side whilst doing your business. Apparantly they had running water though to create noise. We also figured because they were Roman they would have had long gowns so they didn't have to drop thier dacks.
 
The library is the most beautiful building. It was restored about a decade ago. We couldn't figure out why it was called the Library though because it was built as a memorial tomb for some dead important person - like an Emporer or maybe his Dad. As you can tell we haven't been taking the history too seriously. We are finding the architecture really interesting though. Cameron keeps noticing things like drainage systems and doorways. Meanwhile I was picking a bush tick off a stray Ephesus kitten.
 
And so ends another day in the busy life of Cameron and Jillian...

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A very pretty arch	Cam tries out the old fashioned loos	The library was actually a tomb	"Rich St" heading towards the library ruin
A beautiful ruins sight	Cam pondering the info map	Cool arches long overgrown	You could touch and climb all over the place
The Roman mall area	The green grass made the ruins look brilliant	More old rocks in Ephesus	Wild poppies
and wild pansies	The Virgin Mary Church partially restored

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