ephesus, turkey.

So pretty much our first stop on our cruise was supposed to be Athens, Greece. Yeah well guess what?! We got into port and apparently the taxi drivers felt the need to go on strike that day. The Captain came over the PA and said that the taxis were blocking the port so that no one could get into or out of the port, so the government was going to meet with the taxi union and try to figure it all out. It was this huge thing! Airports and ports and trains were all closed because of these taxi drivers! How much control can these guys have?! Anyways, we were told to wait an hour and things would be solved (when has ANY government solved a problem in an hour?!)... we actually never got off the boat. We were stuck in port all day and no one was allowed off the boat, for fear that they couldn't get back on board. Everyone was completely pissed off and the front desk was complete chaos. Some people.. maybe it's just my personality, but if I'm told I can't get off for safety reasons I wouldn't go up to the front desk and demand to talk to someone with more information. They tell you only what they know themselves. We were fortunate though, we may have been more disappointed if we didn't have another chance to visit Athens 2 weeks later. So that was officially day 1 of our cruise: day at sea! Pretty crazy!

Day 2 was spent in Ephesus, Turkey (pronounced Eh-fa-sus) where the apostle Paul taught and the virgin Mary spent her last days. It truly is a very special place! It's back in a little canyon/valley (imagine South Weber, but a LOT smaller) where the land is extremely dry and barren. There are tons of ruins AND cats! All over Turkey there are cats roaming the streets. The people feed them and encourage them to roam because they control the rat population. So of course they tried to make friends with me and I tried to be friendly back...

Now I wouldn't consider myself to be someone super enthusiastic about the New Testament (I know, I know, I should be!) but it really was cool to be in a place where apostles have walked and taught. It was amazing to know that Mary spent her last days here and she was buried near by. It was pretty cool!

These are... as you can probably guess... ancient public toilets..

I think the coolest thing I saw was this statue. The statue had been completely destroyed except for the foot and the ball beneath it. I was eavesdropping on the tour guide describing it and it was very interesting. I guess back during these times the people were aware that the world was round and they made this statue to represent that they knew that. It was a man with his foot on the globe. Well over time people lost that knowledge and as we know, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, everyone thought the world was flat. I found it almost funny that if people had just researched into the history and records of the ancient Greeks they would've known long ago that the world was indeed round! I learn something new everyday!