Day 29 (5 July): Ruins
This morning, the night bus arrived in Epheses, which was the Roman capital in Asia and has the ruins of what at the time was the second biggest city in the world after Rome. I don't think that there are ruins of a similar quality anywhere else in the world, especially, ones where so much is know about the city and its history which was quite decadant. The city used to be on the Agean which is now about 3 km away as the water level has fallen or the mountains have risen.
In the evening, I got on another bus, this time headed to Fethyie, which is a seaside town on the Mediterranean. A connecting bus, however, was overbooked so I had to spend a couple of hours in the town of Aydin, which apparently doesn't get many foreign visitors. A couple of about 10-year-old boys who apparently wanted to learn English circled around me during my two-hour wait and we had some sembalance of a conversation using a Turkish-English dictionary one of them had.
1) Islam and the night bus. On the night bus, they started playing what I believe was a Dominican movie dubbed in Turkish until it got to a pretty raunchy sex scene that I don't think would even make theaters in the US. It was pretty funny to see the Islamic women who were covered up's reaction to this, especially since about half of the women on the bus were (which is realtively high compared to Istambul at least.) The movie was promptly shut off and instead we got to watch Rambo III dubbed in Turkish which was also an interesting choice.
2) Original plumbing. The Roman ruins had pipes running through the walls of their building that worked as a heating and cooling system. In the winter, they ran hot steam through the pipes (which for some reason is still how they heat the building at MIT) and cold water through them in the summer. The town also had some of the first baths with running water (conveniently linked via underground tunnel to the local brothel.) They also had an impressive library, which is today the best preserved building.
3) I met an older Canadian guy (probably in his late 50s or early 60s) today who is also traveling around the world. His trip, like the guy I met yesterday's, is more impressive than mine. He is sailing alone in a boat that is only 24 ft. long and told me he spent 37 days straight awake when he crossed the Pacific. He has not been back to Canada in 5 years and is trying to break several world records.
4) World changing events in economic history, we don't learn about (or I don't remember learning about) in education in the US. The battle of Gallipoli was a big win for the Turks against the Allies (mostly over the Australians and New Zealanders as the British put them on the front line) during WWI. According to some Australians I met, if the allies had won this battle Russian would have continued to be able to export to the West easily and its economy would have done better, making it less likely to have become a Communist country.
In the evening, I got on another bus, this time headed to Fethyie, which is a seaside town on the Mediterranean. A connecting bus, however, was overbooked so I had to spend a couple of hours in the town of Aydin, which apparently doesn't get many foreign visitors. A couple of about 10-year-old boys who apparently wanted to learn English circled around me during my two-hour wait and we had some sembalance of a conversation using a Turkish-English dictionary one of them had.
1) Islam and the night bus. On the night bus, they started playing what I believe was a Dominican movie dubbed in Turkish until it got to a pretty raunchy sex scene that I don't think would even make theaters in the US. It was pretty funny to see the Islamic women who were covered up's reaction to this, especially since about half of the women on the bus were (which is realtively high compared to Istambul at least.) The movie was promptly shut off and instead we got to watch Rambo III dubbed in Turkish which was also an interesting choice.
2) Original plumbing. The Roman ruins had pipes running through the walls of their building that worked as a heating and cooling system. In the winter, they ran hot steam through the pipes (which for some reason is still how they heat the building at MIT) and cold water through them in the summer. The town also had some of the first baths with running water (conveniently linked via underground tunnel to the local brothel.) They also had an impressive library, which is today the best preserved building.
3) I met an older Canadian guy (probably in his late 50s or early 60s) today who is also traveling around the world. His trip, like the guy I met yesterday's, is more impressive than mine. He is sailing alone in a boat that is only 24 ft. long and told me he spent 37 days straight awake when he crossed the Pacific. He has not been back to Canada in 5 years and is trying to break several world records.
4) World changing events in economic history, we don't learn about (or I don't remember learning about) in education in the US. The battle of Gallipoli was a big win for the Turks against the Allies (mostly over the Australians and New Zealanders as the British put them on the front line) during WWI. According to some Australians I met, if the allies had won this battle Russian would have continued to be able to export to the West easily and its economy would have done better, making it less likely to have become a Communist country.
posted by Traveling Brian at 11:04 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home