K-Chuck's Kazakhstan Experience: The Day After (Turkey and Ephesus)

After completing my COS and becoming a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV), I waited in Almaty until around midnight and then took a taxi to the airport where I caught a 3am flight to Turkey. When I saw the sun rise again, it was over the skyline of Istanbul. After spending a stressful morning wading through customs and trying to find my lost money (Western Union is stupid) by lunchtime I was hanging out in the city center eating French fries and Turkish doner kebabs. The whole thing was weird, very surreal. A week ago I was cursing my neighbors in Russian because they were burning trash outside my window while I was hanging out my clothes to dry. Now, I was using English to order coffee in Starbucks and wondering why my computer wasn’t connecting to the wi-fi internet. However, experiencing this weirdness is the exact reason why I wanted to take some time in Turkey before going back to the states. I see Turkey not only as a tourist destination for me, but as an opportunity to help me begin to adjust to America.

Turkey is in a unique position in the world, straddling 2 continents which give it a blend of both East and West. Turkey has things that while not identical, remind me of Kazakhstan, like saying “Asalam alaykim” as a greeting (to men), smelling burning garbage in the evenings, seeing SUVs yielding for donkey carts, hearing the call to prayer from local mosques, and lots of tea. At the same time the country has things that remind me of the West and America: McDonald’s and Starbucks, 5 lane highways, sneakers, and hamburgers. And it doesn’t hurt that the country has over 2000 years of history from 3 major empires on display, lots of hookahs and Efes beer, baklava, and my personal favorite treat, Turkish delight!

I am not alone on this trip. Joining me is Ashley, who is also an RPCV from Kazakhstan. She finished her service about a week earlier than me and since then she has been hanging out on beaches and ruins in Cyprus. She hopped over to Istanbul a day before me. I know Ashley well, as we worked together on a winter culture camp near Kostanai, and I give her credit for practically saving my life because she sewed together my coat after the zipper broke in -40 weather. She’s a cool person and a great travel buddy, although I find myself wondering what would happen if I changed her cell phone ring from the Ohio State fight song to something crazy, like Michigan’s fight song. It also really cool to travel with another RPCV as we’ve began to decompress and reflect on the past 27 months together, I like talking to her as she has a great perspective

We spent a day in Istanbul eating food and then took a 10 hour bus south to the town of Selcuk to hang out and climb on the ruins of Ephesus The ruins are very big and it took us the majority of the afternoon to explore and take photos. Some things that surprised me:

While it is located far from Jerusalem and Rome the city still played a huge role in the development of Christianity. The apostle Paul lived there for many years and Mary moved to a house about 8km away after her son died and rose again (if you believe in that particular book :-)) Ephesus also gets mentioned in the book of Revelations, although I'm not sure if this is a good thing because Revelations is possibly the scariest book in the bible.

Ephesus was made the capital of the Asian territories when it was under Roman rule.

The Greeks oversaw the building of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which was regarded as one of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World.

The ruins.

The advantage to going to Turkey in November: The weather is still nice, and there are few tourists!

Cats! I found this kitty friend in the ruins of the Church of Mary. Unfortunately she was too big for my bag

My favorite portion of the ruins was the outdoor theater, the very same one where St. Paul got yelled at by townspeople because he made a speech against paganism and the gods. The people weren't happy because Paul was talking bad about their gods, and they happened to like their huge temple of Artemis, so they screamed at him for over 3 hours, imprisioned him briefly, and then threw him out of the city.