double cross...

I'd like to talk at length about our visit to Ephesus, about this sprawling city-state with it's marble streets, it's library, it's colonades and more. But my phone is a clumsy platform for waxing poetic. Do a Flickr search and you'll find some great pics no doubt. We abandoned our group and struck out with an audio tour that let us explore some of the City's nooks and crannies. We also visited the excavation/restoration of
A large house with painted frescos and marble walls that in some ways surpassed Pompii.

It was a great visit. Our next stop was to be "the house of Mary" one of many homes the virgin apparently moved to later in life. We planned to just wait at the bus. But we didn't go to the house of Mary next, oh no. We were quietly diverted to a "leather factory". Shit. This is one of the oldest tourist traps around. You get steered to a friends shop and he gets a cut of any sales. Nice. We had to sit through a "fashion show" of overpriced jackets that would be useless in Ohio and a trip to their showroom. Rossana quickly bugged out and I followed suit. About half the tour waited outside. After almost an hour Rossana bust into the showroom, startling the salesmen, models, the shoppers and our guide put her hands on her hips and loudly asked

"Are we done with this nonsense now? There's at least half this tour that is unhappy, standing in the sun and ready to go."

It got very quiet. Then she left. The buss pulled out less than 5 minutes later.