Day 5: Izmir (July 3rd)

Besim and I both understood that neither of us liked to get up early. He made it clear to me that I shouldn't wake him up (not that I would have done so anyway because I liked to sleep late too).

We woke up and Besim took me out into the city of Izmir. The city of Izmir is a large port for Turkey and Turkey's 3rd largest city. Historically, Izmir was the ancient city of Smyrna, which was the very same place that Homer lived. The city was destroyed in a fire in 1922, meaning that it basically consists of modern buildings. It has always been a very liberal city, at one point in history having more Christians and Jews than Muslims.

So we didn't end up leaving the apartment until around noon. We had lunch and then went for a walk. Besim was very interested in purchasing new sunglasses and so he dragged me to a couple of those stores (I wasn't really interested in it but since he was letting me stay with him and showing me around, I didn't say anything). After that we walked along the water front and took in the scenes there. We also walked to this open area along the water that looked more like Miami Beach than Turkey!



I also saw the famous clock tower of Izmir. Apparently it is one of those big landmarks that everyone sees and takes a picture in front of when they go. I suppose it would be the equivalent of the arches of St. Louis in the United States.

After our walk along the the water, we took the ferry to the other side of Izmir. Izmir is located on a big bay, so the city spans around the entire bay, making travel from one side to the other faster on ferry than on land. On the other side, we just planned to walk around (that's pretty much all we really did). When we crossed the ferry over (which was a really pretty ride), we began walking on the main street. A young kid came up to us, trying to advertise for this environmental cause. When Besim pretended not to understand Turkish, the kid started talking in English. Besim responded in Portuguese that he didn't understand English. The kid then responded in Portuguese that he only knew a little bit and something about helping or something. Besim was so impressed that the kid understood that he decided to give the kid a couple of minutes of his time to listen. The exchange was pretty humorous to me.

We then walked down another side street and Besim decided he was thirsty and wanted lemonade. I wanted one too. He told me to go walk away from the store so the store clerk did not see us together. He explained to me that if he saw a foreigner he might try to raise the price because foreigners don't know what the actual prices should be. I hadn't experienced that before (as far as I knew) and I wondered how many times it had happened to me without realizing it. I guess I couldn't complain too much because everything was still way cheaper than the US.

We walked around some more and then headed back to the other side of Izmir. Besim did provide me with one really good piece of advice. We started talking about the art of bargaining (which is huge in Turkey and the Middle East). I told him I wasn't really sure how to do it and he told me a technique that I didn't think of that would change my life for the rest of the time I was in Turkey. He told me that if I want to effectively negotiate, I should push them down as low as I can. Always let them offer prices (you don't want to show your cards and tell them where your basement is incase its too high). Then if the price isn't low enough, you leave. Generally, when someone leaves, they will find an equal or better price elsewhere (and would not return in either situation). For this reason, if the seller credibly believes that you are going to leave, he will give you his absolute lowest price. If its still too much, you can always leave and if you find its way better than anywhere else you can always come back and get the thing for the same price offered. There's definitely an art to it.

That evening I took a taxi back to the bus station and boarded a bus for Pammukale (which literally means cotton castle in Turkish). I had always wanted to go there ever since I saw the pictures. The ride was about 3 hours. When I arrived it was very late and I had to take a taxi to a hotel. With it being so late and dark and me not knowing where any other hotel was, I was not in a good place to practice my bargaining skills. I ended up paying 30TL for the room, which was actually not too terrible. The room had air conditioner, wireless internet, and a pool in the hotel. It was also quite comfortable. I retired to bed and went to sleep.