Day 7 - İzmir
You see it correctly, the dot above the İ in İzmir. Turkish had a few additional letters (more like dialectics) and the dotted "i" makes a big difference compared with the undotted "ı."
I sped over here today without Mylène, who is recovering from some overheating in Dikili. She came a bit later, being very kindly dropped off by our couchsurfer from there (Emre).
İzmir is the third largest city and sprawls quite a bit like Istanbul.
The first night we met up with our host, Ufuk at a bar for a couchsurfing meeting where we met some other İzmirliler (people from İzmir). Most of the couchsurfers at the meeting were Turkish. On the second day we had an adventure simply navigating the public transport system and finding our way center from Ufuk's house. We went to Kadifekale, the ruins of the ancient İzmir Akropolis on top of a hill overlooking the city. It wasn't as much of a tourist attraction as I had expected. In fact we were the only tourists there. There's isn't much left actually.
But the place seems to attract a lot of Syrian refugees. We noticed this in Istanbul as well, our couchsurfers confirmed that it is a problem because they don't want to stay in the camps so they wander to the cities without speaking any Turkish. I would say most of the Syrians we've seen are women and children.
View from the akropolis
After the akropolis we stumbled upon a small çay nook nestled behind a mosque. Mylène was the only girl and everyone stopped the clacking the pieces of their Okay games as we walked in. Okay is kind of like rummy but played with numbered chips.
We sat down at a table and made small talk with the guys there. But we refused to bet on the game and they didn't want to play with a woman. So they were a little bored while we drank our çay.
Hanging out with the Okay players
When we met back up with our couchsurfer, he was again surrounded by more couchsurfers at a bar. A couple of them asked us if we wanted a more Turkish experience and took us to the student hangout neighborhood. It was very lively for a Thursday and almost every bar had live music - most notably Turkish pop and traditional Turkish styles. We enjoyed a concert by a Turkish pop cover band. Everyone knew the lyrics except us.
Turkish cover band in İzmir
I sped over here today without Mylène, who is recovering from some overheating in Dikili. She came a bit later, being very kindly dropped off by our couchsurfer from there (Emre).
İzmir is the third largest city and sprawls quite a bit like Istanbul.
The first night we met up with our host, Ufuk at a bar for a couchsurfing meeting where we met some other İzmirliler (people from İzmir). Most of the couchsurfers at the meeting were Turkish. On the second day we had an adventure simply navigating the public transport system and finding our way center from Ufuk's house. We went to Kadifekale, the ruins of the ancient İzmir Akropolis on top of a hill overlooking the city. It wasn't as much of a tourist attraction as I had expected. In fact we were the only tourists there. There's isn't much left actually.
But the place seems to attract a lot of Syrian refugees. We noticed this in Istanbul as well, our couchsurfers confirmed that it is a problem because they don't want to stay in the camps so they wander to the cities without speaking any Turkish. I would say most of the Syrians we've seen are women and children.
View from the akropolis
After the akropolis we stumbled upon a small çay nook nestled behind a mosque. Mylène was the only girl and everyone stopped the clacking the pieces of their Okay games as we walked in. Okay is kind of like rummy but played with numbered chips.
We sat down at a table and made small talk with the guys there. But we refused to bet on the game and they didn't want to play with a woman. So they were a little bored while we drank our çay.
Hanging out with the Okay players
When we met back up with our couchsurfer, he was again surrounded by more couchsurfers at a bar. A couple of them asked us if we wanted a more Turkish experience and took us to the student hangout neighborhood. It was very lively for a Thursday and almost every bar had live music - most notably Turkish pop and traditional Turkish styles. We enjoyed a concert by a Turkish pop cover band. Everyone knew the lyrics except us.
Turkish cover band in İzmir
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