595 - Agora of Smyrna
Today my five senses got culture shocked.
We were eating dinner after visiting Ephesus Ancient City when everything fell apart. Even though Ephesus is largely a tourist attraction in Eastern Turkey, it’s still fairly remote for the average visitor.
This means the surrounding area is still very Turkish in culture, and not at all “touristized.” Yes, I made that word up. But the point I’m trying to make is that it’s rural Turkey at its finest- and I wasn’t quite used to that.
To set the context here, I was out with Alara’s family, who is all Turkish. The town we were walking around was called Selçuk, which I can only describe as second world. It wasn’t quite as developed as parts of the United States, but it also wasn’t quite as run down as parts of Honduras that I’d been through a few years ago.
We wandered the city at night, dimly lit with shadows, scoping for restaurants for restaurants that caught our eye. What stood out to me was that Alara’s parents would talk to various owners, almost as if they were interviewing them about their kitchen. Cooks would point to different food items behind glass windows, showing off what was featured that night.
Commentary would banter back and forth, but I found it difficult to decipher the tonality of the conversations. It appeared that Turkish conversation had a tendency to be loud(er), which in American conversation, often signalized conflict. But according to Alara, these were normal conversations being had.
It felt like I was in a dream where I couldn’t comprehend anything. When’s the last time in America you went to a sit-down restaurant where you had to have the owners of the restaurant sell you on the idea of eating there before sitting down? Much less see half the entrees right in front of you before you eat it? Physical menus were few and far between.
Eventually Alara’s parents chose a restaurant that met their standards, and we sat down. An overflowing bowl of pastries was dropped on the table, one containing so much bread we could never dream of finishing it.
I took a look around. Almost every male in the restaurant was watching Turkish soccer on their phones, silently cheering in unison. Alara’s family chatted excitedly in Turkish about the ancient city we just explored, and an aroma drifted through the air… a combination of spices I’ve never smelt before.
The sound of prayer echoed across the stone streets, off-kilter chants from a nearby mosque reminding the people to pray to their deity.
And suddenly… I felt out of place.
I’m sure as a regular person reading this, it’s hard to contextualize the situation. It could seem like a normal dinner experience. But every one of my senses was experiencing something I wasn’t entirely familiar with, and I panicked.
Let’s take inventory for as second:
Sight: Entirely new city/culture
Smell: Unfamiliar Turkish cuisine
Sound: Turkish language, chanting from a mosque
Taste: Unfamiliar eggplant dish (?)
Touch: I’m not sure but you get the point
I had to force myself to understand that this wasn’t some dream, or subdivision of reality. This was real life. I was here, in Turkey, right now. A foreign country within which I had no familiarity with the culture.
And it turns out, this is the moment I most remember from the whole Turkey trip. It’s never the parts you expect.
Eventually we finished up our meal, and then we decided what we’d do the next day.
Turns out there was another ancient city nearby, this one called the Agora of Smyrna. Agora stands for ‘gathering place,’ and Smyrna was the name of the ancient city, presently named İzmir.
I guess it wasn’t too on the cheek that we were visiting an ancient gathering place now that I’d just had my peak cultural experience in a modern gathering place.
Here’s some highlights from the Agora:
“Stargate Smyrna”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 250 ~ 12mm ~ f/8 ~ 1/250s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
“In the Shadows”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 24-105mm f/4
[ISO 250 ~ 24mm ~ f/10 ~ 1/200s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
“Harp Verde”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 24-105mm f/4
[ISO 250 ~ 84mm ~ f/8 ~ 1/320s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I have no idea what the function of any of those arches are, or what any of the stone rooms meant. But that appears to be right on brand for this trip.
Stay tuned for the next adventure where I explore one final set of ruins in Turkey.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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