mary's house, jo leaving, and getting sick. again.

Yesterday we met up with Steph and Josh and got a lift with Harry to Mary's House. this house is supposedly the house that she ended up in because Jesus told John to look after his mother, and this is the area that John ended up in. Also some Catholic nun who was invalid and had never left Germany had a vision of where her house was and the description was exactly like the house found outside of Ephesus. The place was a little overrated and way too expensive. But I think Granny Flo will appreciate the photos. And I bought her some Holy Water.

After Mary's house, Harry took us to his brother's ex-wife's ceramic workshop. This was one of the best places we've seen for pottery so far, and his ex-sister in law was really lovely too. They gave the four of us the huge demonstration on the pottery wheel, and the ladies who hand paint ALL their ceramics. No design is the same, which is pretty cool. And then we were shown the way they were coated and fired again. Then of course after that we were shown the gallery and "please don't feel you have to buy anything, but it is low season, so everything is half price". haha

So of course, we found many things we loved! The really great thing about the clay from this area is that it has a quartz mix and its very strong and very light. Great for a backpacker. I found mum and dad a Hitite wine jug and bargained it down to less than 100 lira! And then the special creation of this particular ceramics place is their lanterns. No where in Turkey or the Middle East have I seen these, and they were just soooooo beautiful. I had to get one. It cost a bit. But i just had to. And so did Jo... We all bought stuff that day, the canadians and us, so the shop people were happy. we were happy. even if someone was getting a commission.


Next we headed to the bus station to send Jo off on her way to Greece. That was a bit sad for me, 'coz I was now by myself, and I'd been with Jo all since Jordan. But I'll see her again when I get back to Aus.

Once she left, Josh, Steph and I, caught a bus up to a town in the mountains called Sirence. It was a beautiful little village and the name means 'lovely' or 'beautiful' or something. This never used to be it's name. According to the LP, the people who founded it actually name it 'Ugly' so that no one would come to their little piece of paradise that they had found. But the Turkish government changed it's name a while ago.

The town specializes in fruit wines. So we tried cherry, melon, strawberry, blackberry, tangerine, quince and something else. It was all pretty awful, as you could imagine. BUt I guess some people might like it. Then we headed up to a little jewelery store which turned out to be the jeweler who made all the jewelery for the movie Troy, as well as some for Lord of the Rings for Aragon. neways, i have been looking at buying a ring over here, ones with ruby, emerald and sapphire stones in them. Good ones are really expensive, and I found one in this shop, but wasn't being serious when I asked to look at it. Well the price started off at $100... and in the end he dropped it to $35... so I bought it! i spent way too much money that day!


we headed back to Selcuk and got dinner... and as soon as we had ordered and the bread was served, a wave of nausea hit me, and I had to race to the bathroom. After about 10 minutes in the bathroom I realised I wasn't going to be able to eat my meal that had just been served to my table, and left some money with the Canadians, and walked as quickly as possible back to the hostel. and i was violently ill for a good hour or so. too bad if anyone needed to use the one share bathroom we had. A Brazillian guy was lovely though, and got me water and helped me to my bed. and i slept, and when i woke, i was hungry, so Mehmet, the owner, made me vegemite toast.

so it was some form of food poisoning i imagine. But i hurled my stomach up so good that I got it completely out of my system and I have been fine since! which was great because the next day we decided to head to Pammukkale, and I really wanted to see that place.