Sunday, October 04, 2009

On the two and a half hour drive from Sardis to Izmir we stopped at a roadside rest area where we found this old wooden wagon wheel. It seemed to me a symbol of olden times, and even reminded me of the old ox driven carts Saint Teresa road about in in the 16th century. It must have been looking at a broken one of these that she uttered her legendary, “Lord if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few.”

When we drove into Izmir around 3 O’Clock in the afternoon, I leaned over our buis driver’s shoulder to take this picture of a taxi. The Turkish alphabet has no X so they substitute a ks for that sound. Obviously no Exxon stations either in Turkey. Lots of Shells however. Words beginning in an h are also different. A hotel, for instance is a 'OTEL, for the h is a mere aspiration rather than a separate letter. This is the Izmir hotel where we spent the night.