We had an early arrival in Kusadasi, Turkey. I was most excited for this stop as I loved it so much last time.
I was still a bit nervous that we were in Turkey and getting Osama.
The sign on our bus was classic. Yellow paper, bold letters, Catholic, USA. It was nice that they didn’t actually draw a bullseye on the bus.
I torn down the sign and we were on our way. I felt instantly at peace once we headed into Ephesus.
As always with Mary’s House, there were tears from some in the group. I didn’t cry, but I did pray like crazy for a few intentions.
From here we traveled down into Ancient Ephesus. A lovely sign along the way said ‘genuine fake watches’. And that about sums up a touristy port town. Luckily, that stayed outside the gates and we were able to travel back in time down roads walked by Paul, John, Mary and even Cleopatra. The library was the highlight for me. I love it. It feels very Indiana Jones. The amphitheater was cool as well. A few of us climbed to the top and could hear people speaking quietly from the stage.
I went down to the stage and imagined what it must have been like for Paul two thousand years ago. Because of how steep the seats went up, even the top row was right on top of him. I pretended to give a speech. Dodged a few rocks being thrown my way and headed out.
Our bus took us to some ridiculous carpet factory. Weirdest place ever. They led us into an upstairs room. Gave us alcoholic drinks and started throwing carpets around like some freak circus sideshow. At the end was the pitch of course. The one rug I thought looked amazing, was a cheap 30 grand!
I quickly headed back to the boat.
We cruised for a few hours before reaching the next destination of Patmos. I love Patmos!
We had about 5 minutes in the cave of the apocalypse before they took us to the monastery. They gave us an hour there. Ridiculous. Five minutes in a true biblical site, then an hour in some monastery.
On the way up to monastery we saw a Hawkeyes flag hanging from a bar. Being with a couple from Iowa, we had to stop. They spoke with the owner for about 30 minutes. He gave us coffee and then sent us on our way.
After a quick visit to the monastery we headed back down into town. A few drinks later and it was back to the boat.
We all again met in the disco. I skipped karaoke. But was happy to arrive in time for Haddaway. We decided to pull the What is Love skit from SNL on each other at random times. Then we thought it would be fun to get strangers. And we were right.