Türkiye in one Photo: Hopes & Fears

The first week of school we went over procedures with the kids. One procedure that caught my attention was the Earthquake Drill. We have to be ready for earthquakes here. The ground often shakes.

Here's what we do: a siren sounds for 30 seconds. When it sounds, we duck under our desks and protect our heads. When the siren stops, I lead the class out the front door to the edge of campus and follow a wall to a parking lot, where we wait for ... aftershocks, clearance for return, I haven't figured this out yet.

I have experienced one earthquake already, the week before school started. It wasn't much. The building shook for about 15 seconds, and my swivel chair kept moving around under me. But I wasn't knocked around or anything.

I saw the tweet below this week. For me, it combines fascination and fear. I'm fascinated by the history and art that has shook this landscape for thousands of years. People moving in and out, empires rising and falling, and art that is ancient, then ur-ancient, then whatever is more ancient than that.

But the ground shakes, and every few hundred years, all the buildings get knocked down, only to be rebuilt by the next empire, if they come back at all. The Temple of Diana in nearby Ephesus was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. A few hewed-off columns are all that is left to see today.

Ephesus and Miletus were once among the businest port cities of the Roman Empire. Today each city is a mile or so from the coast, its harbors silted in by the rivers carrying the shaken remains of mountains.

The waves in the mosaic below are awesome. But so is the fact that mosaic remains intact. It's too soon to say that Art > Geology. I'm pretty sure that Geology is undefeated in world history. But it shows the enduring culture that makes Türkiye so endlessly fascinating.

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Sunday at the İzmir Archeological Museum

After church today, I resolved to beat the heat and go to a museum. My target: the İzmir Archeological Museum , just south of the bazaar in the Konak district. My friend, Jen, had told me about a slogan she had seen: "Turkey, it's the world's largest museum." It's true. At any given place where I might stand, especially at an important harbor like Izmir, I may have seven millenia of history at my feet! I quickly learned, upon entering the gallery that ancient history is a pretty broad topic to examine. When we think of Ancient Rome, we think of a specific civilization that endured for 500 years. Ancient Greece casts our minds to Socrates and Alexander. But Ancient Turkey? There is really no one thing. I don't want to go into much detail here. I have years of living in and exploring this fascinating country ahead of me. So I have plenty of time to figure it out for myself. I'll just write that before the Greek civilizations, known as Ionians and Aeolians, ...

Turkish Lesson: Köpek

I passed this place on my way home from the train station today. I pass it every day. It's quite common to see owners here playing with a Köpek. It's not the only place I see a Köpek or two. Most are strays I see lying languidly throughout the day. In the evening they clean up the streets and make their rounds of alleyways. My landlord says they keep him up at night, but I haven't heard any barking...yet. Köpek . Your newest Turkish word! Postscript: i spotted this sign on my hike Saturday. I took several shortcuts, but never when I saw this sign. Var means "have or has" in English.

Dürüm: the Turkish burrito

When Americans and western Europeans think of Turkish food, the first word that comes to mind is Döner, that fast-food delicacy of shaved pieces of roasted lamb or chicken, stuffed into a pita with salad and hot sauce. As they say in Deutschland, " Döner ist schöner ," and the truth is that there are few snacks more beautiful or more delicious. But since I've been in Turkey, I have yet to eat Döner as I know it from England and Germany. İnstead, I have found dürüm, which looks like a chicken burrito 🌯 and tastes delicious. Like the burrito, the dürüm is wrapped in a tortilla. İ have seen tortillas for sale in the bread aisle, too. The meat for the dürüm is cut from the same, rotating spit of roasting meat that goes into a Döner. Unlike the burrito, the meat is really yummy. As you can see from the photo, it was served with red sauce that wasn't "peppery hot" as one would find in a Mexican restaurant, but was savory hot. There were small peppers...

Aegean Pearls: My Life in Izmir

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