In which Justine owns up to a character flaw.

[dragojustine]

Half day travel to Selcuk, which is a lovely town utterly swarming with Kiwis and Aussies.  I find it funny how the tourists segregate themselves.  The town has a lot to see- the Ephesus museum, Selcuk mosque (one of the only major non-Ottoman style mosques around, I understand, and strikingly different looking) and some lovely small towns nearby.  We settled in at the hotel and then went to Ephesus, again late in the day for the heat.  Good guide, if a little dry, spent about two hours with him.  We missed the newly excavated terrace houses, though, which is too bad (and might be worth braving a little more heat and crowds for).  It looks like the city is being pretty constantly excavated and restored, and I would quite like to go back in a few years.  The theater made me all mushy and romantic (of course!) especially so because you can look out past the stage to the huge, broad, paved Harbor road that led through the heart of the city down to the docks.  How am I supposed to resist that?  

Headed back and had a birthday dinner for Joy.  Melinda bought a highly-suspicious cake, and Nina arranged for the restaurant to put up this huge banner.  There was another huge table, an older tour group of Kiwis, and they insisted on singing to her quite heartily.  

That restaurant had a kitten, absolutely tiny thing with its eyes barely open, and we got to cuddle it and syringe-feed it.  It was quite possible the most ovary-melting cute thing I've seen sine the very first time we visited Roxy.

Ephesus really is fantastic, and you time it right you can have the whole city practically to yourself.  The facade of the library is spectacular.  And that harbor road, just stretching out like an arrow, lit by led to the ghost of the bustling docks... My god I am creepy and gushy and sentimental.