Ephesus

Oh Ephesus.  You're just too much. Maybe it's vanity, or maybe it's perfectionism -- which is it? Do 'fess up.

Ephesus is one of the most complete Roman cities to have survived the centuries.  That's saying a lot.  It has survived wars, pillaging barbarians, religious fanatics, ring-around-the-Aegean empire rotation, and most importantly – shifting trade routes.

And by survival, I mean structures that still stand: pillars, columns, walls, facades.  Decorations, paint, statues, all that stuff, has of course, gone to tomb raiders, treasure hunters and dirt.

We stayed at Attila's Getaway, about 5 km in the nearby town of Selcuk.  It's where we met Carol and Barbara, two lovely American women who taught Yuppie Nomad and I how to play backgammon.  Now I can strut into a teahouse crammed with old-timers and their boards and not be intimidated.  I also got a lot better at billiards, almost kicking Attila's dad (one of those intimidating old-timer) at the game before I bowed out.  The reason?  He told the entire hostel that he was gonna whip my butt for Yuppie Nomad (whom I had just so ungentlemanly dispatched in prior game). "Josh! You should be a man – be a gentleman towards your girlfriend!" he growled. That and I didn't want him to lose face. 

Attila's was also where Yuppie Nomad almost sank in the swimming pool, where we sat each night by the fire and hummed along to indie-coolish songs belted out with oh-so-soulful dips and warbles by a Aussie girl... It's also where Yuppie Nomad debated the merits of NGO philanthropy with trans-continental bicyclists and I played word games with young princelings on holidays (Attilla's nephews).

As Barbara said – it was definitely a hippie type place.

Oh, and it was also where we puffed hookah pipes and talked about how we liked to smoke hookah between heavy clouds of flavored smoke.

And yes, it was where we met Will (short for Wilhem) our friend from Holland who studied econo-politics at Cambridge and who was in throes of the difficult decision to take a train to Lebanon by way of Syria to visit his parents or.. to travel more. We also met Marika, Will's sort of-not-quite interest who speaks his common tongue (Dutch) and is a foreign swap doctor-in-training in Istanbul.  Yuppie Nomad was rooting for Will, but alas, a hangover combined with dorkiness is not a good combination for successful flirtation.

Oh yes. Ephesus.

I suppose the photos will speak more about the site than I ever could – but some recap:  A house excavated was thought to be a brothel now has reverted into a house – one with a small statue with a large gift... A library built to conceal a tomb but now only concealed a open sky.  An eternal flame that has long since died. A theater carved into the hills where 3 Korean tourists performed Christian hymns. A marble colonnade that once led to a harbor.  A now dried up harbor where Paul the Apostle boarded a ship bound for Rome.  A temple to Artemis, the goddess of fertility and the hunt and the moon, destroyed by Roman Christians fed up with being fed to lions.. what was once one of the Seven Wonders of the World, with just one pillar left standing in a lonely field...

And yes more.  As Will babbled on about public Roman toilets and Yuppie Nomad bought ice cream and I tried to avoid the tourist invaders.. the sights continued.

Just outside of ancient Ephesus, in the town of Selcuk, John, the Apostle-Saint, he whom Jesus loved the most, laid.  John, the apostle picked to preach to Asia Minor, jailed on nearby Patmos, where he wrote visions of archangels and beasts and lakes of fire and brimstone – that John, died and buried in Ephesus.  (So the ecumenical council in 400 AD states, according to local villagers testaments and corroborating texts.)

It was a simple stone tablet on the ground, housed in a now broken Byzantine cathedral that embraced a smaller more ancient chapel-shrine.  When I was there, it supported feet and sneakers and bags of over-eager tourists who wanted a snapshot of them at (amazing!) John's tomb.  From the Bible-belt, from prim Asia, from loyal Europe they came...

Will left us for Lebanon (what an awkward that conversation was! of Jews and Israel and Hizbollah and modern Lebanese and oh yes, America and hegemonies.. ), but we went up the hill alone, and went into the House of Mary. Mary who heard Gabriel pronounced the impossible, Mary who wept under a crucifix, Mary of red-and-blue Raphaels, Mary of the marbled tears and miracles and sacred hearts... yes, Mary followed John, as part of the Savior's request, to Ephesus, where she lived and died – did she know that she was going to be such a big hit, memorialized in art and prayers and a pop musician's identity?

Oh Ephesus.  Do you have to strut all your stuff before lesser-endowed ancient cities? Is it their fault that they've been ravaged by wars and millenniums, or that modern towns have been built on top? That they have no mentions in Ptolemy's texts or New Testament lore?  Do you have to parade your buildings and temples and theaters so .. in plain sight?