Western Turkey P.1

Although we could have spent our entire time in Turkey wandering around Istanbul, we knew we would be returning for a few more days before we left Turkey, so we reluctantly moved on.

We left our hotel and caught the metro to the bus station, where we took a five hour bus ride to a short ferry crossing to get to Canakkale, the modern town built outside of the ancient ruins of Troy.

Incase anyone is in the area, our advice would be to go if you have a few extra days, and if it is on your way. If your schedule is tight, your time may be better spent at some other sights. Unless you’re a Homeric Scholar, it may be underwhelming.

Still, being a big Greek Mythology fan as a kid, and just wrapping up reading The Iliad as we visited, (Sorry, Ms. Welker, never got around to it Senior year), it was pretty surreal to walk in the footsteps of some of the oldest characters in Western Civilization (real or not).

Troy itself was undeniably real, and existed long before the time of Helen and the events of the Iliad, and it existed long after. Archeologists have discovered nine different ancient cities all built on top of each other.

The visit doesn’t take long, even if you linger. We were soon on the small bus back to Canakkale to catch another bus to Izmir.

Izmir wasn’t on the list of possible stops initially. Unfortunately I was having some pretty consistent, pretty intense internal back pains. Izmir is the third largest city in Turkey behind Istanbul and the capital Ankara, so we called our travel insurance and found a clinic we could visit. It was only a small detour.

There is nothing quite like talking to a young doctor who is translating words on her phone while she is basically playing charades to get an idea of your symptoms. Luckily, the clinic contracts interpreters just for this occasion, and we were able to sure things up a bit.

As crazy as it was, we walked right in, saw a doctor immediately, walked straight to the X-Ray room, called someone to come back to work to use the machine, and walked right back to the doctor. Our longest wait for the blood test results.

While I was getting the X-Rays, the interpreter asked what I did for NATO… Apparently they have a contract with them and see a lot of employees in the country. This may explain why things moved so quickly. Turns out, it was a bit of a kidney infection. Glad we got it checked out. Antibiotics in hand, we hoped on a short train ride to Selcuk.

From Turkey, with love,

Will + Sara