This is the trip of a lifetime: Day 7- April 16th Ephesus

Putting this one up a couple days late too :) we spent the day in ephesus which was soooo amazing! I think it really sank in at that point that people really lived here and it was an actual functioning city. Toga guys were here! Haha :) really though, Ephesus is one of the best preserved cities out there. You can walk through the main gates, follow the collenaded street to the agora area and then they had this amazing spot they called the terrace houses- where it was a structure they had built around these houses that were excavated. We followed a steel set of walkways and steps through this area and they had diagrams of the different houses we were walking through and over. I felt like my dreams of being among the 'detectives in togas' came true! Such a neat experience. After that we walked over to the library, which was almost completely intact thanks to the restoration and such. There were huge marble columns and big statues between each one- just walking around in the hugeness of it and imagining the garden (which we've learned means courtyard, usually there aren't any plants involved!) filled with toga-ed men and servants and ancient cats... Ah it was the most amazing thing.

Yeah that's another thing we're learning- cats are everywhere! There are a couple dogs but usually you see cats running around. And turtles actually. There's a lot of turtles. So after the library we went to the theater at Ephesus. I had forgotten this part but the riot that the makers of Athena imagery started against Paul was on Ephesus, so we got to follow the route those rioters would have travelled from the agora to the theater where Paul's friends were hiding him from the danger- it was pretty neat (maddie haha)

After Ephesus we had lunch at a Turkish rug factory! it was a delicious (and free) lunch and the factory was a really cool experience :)

We spent the night in a big high rise hotel in Izmir- they had the fanciest dinner spot yet! Delicious too- i ate all of it :) after dinner a group of us walked around the boardwalk area right on the water, which was really fun :) we got to watch a little Turkish football (soccer) too!

Picture 1- our lunch spot

Picture 2- sunrise in Izmir

Picture 3- breakfast back at our hotel in kusadasi

Picture 4- more sunrise :)

Picture 5- our bus aisle- we're near the back

Picture 6- theater in Ephesus

Picture 7- dinner pt 1

Picture 8- dinner pt 2

Picture 9- the fancy shmancy dinner!