Saturday, May 28, 2011

Aboard the Mariner

Today's port stop was Kusadasi, Turkey. It is a shopping mecca for carpets, fake watches, fake purses, fake sunglasses. As it turned out, my sunglasses broke so I bought a pair of fake Chanels. They serve the purpose and were cheap. The vendors were not as aggressive as I remembered. We did not go to Ephesus since we had been there twice before so we just walked around, got out of the tourist area and went to a local farmers market. How fresh and wonderful everything looked and smelled. They had every possible fruit, vegetable, cheese, spice and sweet available. The vendors were shouting out their bargains in a cacaphony of noise.




The muezzin called the faithful to prayer at the local mosque. Half of those praying on their little prayer rugs had cell phones attached to their ears. Turkey is a secular country with a moslem minority so there weren't that many faithful. I think their main religion is called tourism and their local god is currency in any shape or form.



We got caught in the daily downpour but it was all right because it was warm. We came upon a school where the local kids were getting ready for a graduation ceremony and were all dressed in their bright red graduation caps and gowns. So cute! Kids are the same all over if the crazy fanatics don't get to them and bend their minds out of shape.



We are both longing for a sea day. We have been running around like two maniacs. We say we will sleep late and not be the first ones off the ship but something goes off in our heads the minute the ropes tie up and off we go with me grouchy because I hate to get up early.



We had dinner tonight with a lovely Australian couple from Melbourne who seem to travel like we do so there was much to talk about. The entertainment tonight was someone who we saw at Cascade Lakes last year. Small world and getting smaller.



We were lucky enough to miss more European riots, this time in Barcelona. There seems to be a lot of unrest in the world these days. I hope things are calm when we get to Israel.



Jerry is taking videos like a crazy man. His head is forever stuck in the video camera. Today he took his famous pool thermometer to the beach and took the water temperature...about 74. Too cold for us. He made me take a video but I was laughing so hysterically that the camera shook like it was in the middle of an earthquake.



More to come from Rhodes tomorrow.

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