Troy! And Ayvalık!

Today, we visited our first ruins: Troy! Yes, that Troy. Everything I'd read was like, "Troy is super disappointing and boring and only go if you love Greek mythology". Perhaps it was because it was the first we saw, or maybe I'm actually a fiend for Homer, but I really enjoyed them! It's so mind-boggling to see walls that were built nearly 5000 years ago, to look at streets used for nearly 3000 years. That shit's cray.

Along the drive to Troy from Çanakkale

We did not leave as early as planned, because one of us (me, obviously) wanted to sleep in later, but we did get up by 8:30 and were downstairs eating breakfast by 9:00. Another delicious Turkish buffet, though there was less cheese at this one than the Burçman's––they made up for it with cake, though (I was particularly fond of the custard one), and oven-melted bread-cheese-tomato slices. And simit! Which they translated as "bagels", hahaha. I still feel like we should buy simit from somewhere that sells it fresh, because the bit we had was rather dry. So that's still on the to-do list!

We checked out and left most of our luggage in the hotel's luggage room and drove the 40ish minutes to Troy (/Troia/Truva; Marcos' summary of why people care about it: "this is the story where Orlando Bloom wants the pretty blonde woman, right?"), where we bought our tickets and lugged our camera gear into the ruins, stopping for the requisite photos in front of the Trojan horse statue (not as cool as the one used in the movie, though, see previous post). 

We assume the windows were not in the original model, ha!

It took us about 3 hours to make our way through the site, though it could have been done in half that time if we hadn't been taking stock footage. 

Here you can see the different layers of the site––Troy was rebuilt many, many times,
and has been separated into 9 main different stages.

A beautifully maintained road

Little theater! Supposedly used in Roman times for musical performances

Temple

Sponsored by Tibalu!

While Marcos was doing his filmmaker thing, I read up on Troy in the guidebook he'd purchased and did a wee bit of recording myself. The area around Troy is just beautiful, rolling hills and trees and sunflowers, and you could see the sea out off on the horizon. I took about 50 photos, but this one pretty much sums them up:

Innit purty?

While it was very sunny and quite warm, it was for the most part entirely comfortable because there was crazy wind. Which was awesome for wicking away the sweat, but not so awesome for 

WHOA we just encountered a huge herd of goats on the road. Here's some pictures!

Hey goats

Bye goats

anyways, not so awesome for not blowing up the dust. The heat relief was definitely worth it, though! Then we drove back to Çanakkale and ate (I had spinach Turkish ravioli in yogurt, Marcos had tavuk kebapı (chicken kebab), after which I went to a pastane (patisserie) and got various desserty goodies (all for 5 TL!). 

Oh, right, and I spoke German, first with a random Turkish dude (who also lived in Berlin! and whose grandfather moved to Pennsylvania), then with one of the customers in the pastane when I failed at ordering in Turkish (note to self: next time, just point). So yay! My German came in handy. Now I just need to work on the Turkish!

After spending several hours in the sun, I was very tired, so once we had picked up our luggage and gotten on our way, I fell asleep in the back for about an hour, then woke up in time for some nice road time. Marcos stopped several times to take stock footage, and we got stuck behind a very lumbering, precariously loaded hay truck and were not crazy enough to pass him on the blind curves, unlike a few drivers behind us so the supposed 2+ hour trip ended up taking nearly 4, but now we are almost in Ayvalık––arrived just in time for sunset over the village! Which Marcos managed to get some footage of, score!

And I got a picture :)

/Later the same night

We found our pension after much wandering on extremely narrow, extremely bumpy cobblestone roads––Ayvalık used to be a Greek seaside village, and its roads (and much of its buildings) have not been modernized. 

Inscription inside our pension––if anyone speaks/reads Greek, I'd love to know what it means!

Everything is so squished together!

Our room is in the second pension, down the hill from the main one, and seems to not have wi-fi, so that is why you are reading this after the fact! (Also, sorry about the post deluge.) We ventured out on foot to find someplace to eat, around 9:00, and stumbled upon a street fair that took up a few blocks. I had initially neglected to bring my camera, as I didn't want to carry it (plus, we were just going to eat, what could I possibly need it for?)––the walk to pick it up once I realized things were worth photographing (duh) convinced me to not make such foolish assumptions again. 

The street fair apparently runs every night from 8:30 to 1:00 (at least, I think that's what the sign said...)

We wandered some around the waterfront before settling at a restaurant on the sea that was rather overpriced for what we got, but as we'd eaten a big late lunch it was not as bad as it could have been. 

Oily meatballs (köfte) and French fries, which were at least very fresh!

Also, vişne juice is fast becoming my favorite drink!

So many boats! To go to the islands across the sea, which belong to Greece

Neon green palm trees, as promised

Name of a clothing store, which made us lol

Now Marcos is showering in preparation for bed, which I will soon do as well. We're waking up relatively early tomorrow for breakfast at 9:00 so we can get on the road to Bergama in the morning and visit Pergamon in the afternoon––I've seen the (stolen) ruins in Berlin, so I'm looking forward to seeing their original home! Now, off to write yesterday's post, which has already been posted by the time you're reading this (haha, so disorganized).

As the internet here is slow and I am very, very tired, I will have to put off the post about today (Bergama/Pergamon!) until tomorrow. We're headed to Izmir, about a 2 hour drive, and have nothing else planned for the day except resting, so I should be able to get all caught up on posts! And hopefully do some other work, too––reading articles in the car is all well and good, but there are some things I need internet for!