Izmir and Transfer

We bid adieu to Kalkan, getting a lift to the bus station by a friendly local who felt sorry for us lugging our packs into town. The overnight bus got us into Izmir earlier than planned - around 6AM - but we dozed in the bus station for a couple hours as we'd arranged to meet our couch host at 9. Around 8, we went in search of the transfer bus, which was ridiculously difficult to negotiate. Three buses and lots of misinformation later, we ended up at our stop, then waited another 45 minutes before we realized we'd been calling the wrong number. Finally, we did get in touch with Koray, our host.

Koray and his roommate Alpi - both of whom are business students - treated us to a tasty Turkish breakfast before Koray played tour guide, taking us into town, setting us up with a discount card for the bus, and showing us all the major sights, including a nice tea garden in the middle of the bazar which made its coffee one mini cup on an individual burner at a time. Koray also helped us figure out our ferry tickets to Greece and showed us where we could trade in our used books before leaving us to meet his girlfriend.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around town and finding ourselves beneath an incredible avian spectacle; literally tens of thousands of birds were circling above one intersection in town, bringing pedestrian traffic to a stop as everyone craned up to look. Just waves of birds crashing into each other... really crazy to watch, and it lasted for about 30 minutes. Finally, we tore ourselves away and indulged in one of Izmir's ubiquitous potato bars for dinner. For 4 lira (2 euros) you get a head-sized baked potato with 6 toppings and a soda. Mmm... We also indulged in a flick, catching Quantum of Solace, which was really just OK.



Our last two days were spent largely shopping for any last minute Turkish souvenirs. Some of our purchases: a kilo of pistachios (Kate's newfound snack of choice), dried apricots, ceramic gifts which though beautiful, we later discovered are quite breakable, and our piece de resistance - a Turkish carpet. We'd shopped around for a bit as we'd gone through the country, sat in on a few semi-forced carpet lectures, and felt we had a decent grasp of what to look for by this point, so when we found a carpet we actually really like, we snapped it up. After a fairly intense haggle, of course.

On our last night, we cooked a big pasta dinner for our hosts, where we learned that the Turkish prefer yogurt to cheese on their pasta. Weirdos. Koray invited a friend over and we all bonded over mulled wine and found out that all the business students at their university have to take all their courses in English, which is insane. We also found out that one of his roommates is actually a couple years younger than his birth certificate states due to some rather strange circumstances that might land his father in jail.

Anyway, good times in Izmir, but we had a farm to plow. So the next morning, we began the heinous transfer over to the island of Kea. Here's how that went down: bus from Izmir town to Izmir out of town bus station. Bus from there to Çesme, the port town. Ferry from Çesme to Chios. Kill 4 hours in Chios with all our bags. Overnight ferry from Chios to Piraeus. Metro from Piraeus into Athens center. Bus from Athens to Lavrio. Kill about 8 hours in Lavrio. Ferry from Lavrio to Kea. But we made it. And we farmed. All coming soon...