Greetings from Izmir, Turkey.  I apologize for the numerous typos on this email.  It took me 20 minutes to figure out how to log on because the keyboard is in Turkish and no one here speaks English and I speak no Turkish.

After I wrote last night I was rather tired and went to bed early about 10 and slept until 6.  This morning I had breakfast and then got on the bus for Troy!!  Absolutely fascinating..It was hard to believe that I was actually at troy...to be honest until I made my plans I thought Troy was in Greece!  We saw the huge wooden horse. the Trojan horse and I even climbed to the top.  The tour guide was great and explained all about Helen of Troy Paris Aphrodite Zeus and all the legends.  Troy was around since 3000 BC until 500 ad but there were 9 cities of troy rebuilt over the other ones.  We saw where Hektor and Achilles had their final battle and where the Phoenicians and other cultures had battles.  There was so much history it was hard to keep track of...most people think of troy as Greco roman but I learned a lot about Mesopotamia the Hittites and that the Turks were originally Anatolia from central Asia..They are closely related to Uzbekistan and Pakistan but look different because Turks mixed with so many races and cultures.   I thoroughly enjoyed this.  This is also where homers Iliad and odyssey took place...which I read in college but didn’t really pay attention to it.  Now I want to learn more about the history

I then got back to cannakale and got bus to Izmir...this is where the difficulties began.  The bus ride was a long winding 6 hours along the Aegean Sea.  No one spoke English and I didn’t know what was going on.  I didn’t even know when to get off the bus.  Finally I got to Izmir and my hospitality club plans did not work out.   I wandered around the bus station asking do you speak English? Do you speak English? And no one did.  I went to a taxi driver and said Centrum so he took me to the city center and I wandered around looking for a place to stay.  It was dark and I had no idea where I was or where I was going.  I finally found a place called hotel oba and it was 20 a night but it includes breakfast and it is a private room with private bath and hot water...at that point Ithought...I just need to find a place and regroup and I am not going to quibble over a few dollars   the room is very nice.   but the people that own it speak no english..So I roamed the dark streets of Izmir looking for cafe.  It is rather scary in this city...it is not like Istanbul...much more conservative and not a big visitor stop.   Though...as difficult as all this was it does always make me feel proud that no matter where I am at.  I have good survival skills and sometimes life is just an adventure where there is no plan there is no sure thing and you just have to wing it!

So now I will find a place to eat grab some goodies and head back to my room until the sun rises and I feel safer on the street and ý figure out how I will get to Ephesus from here.  I may stay here an extra night to regroup repack etc.  By the way...I am now officially in the Asian Continent...so I have now been to four continents and 21 countries!