Day 11 8-23-2011

The day started of very early in the morning 5:30 am. From there we went to breakfast. breakfast was a mess. it took 10 mins just to get a cup of coffee. every time you were close some one would jump in front of you while you were in line.

we made our way out and the first place we stopped at was Ephesus. there we saw the places where medicine was first practiced during the roman empire. it was very hot and of course that was the day that I had worn by black silk Hawaiian shirt. so it felt even hotter.

My camera was still taking photos, but there was a catch. every time I took a photo it was a 1/2 exposure so I had to hold the camera extremely still for the photos to come out. the other thing that I had to do was pull out all my filters and put them all on the camera at the same time. this was because the photos were extremely bright with out the shutter. the last thing that I did was set the aperture to the highest value. dimming the pictures even more. this might sound as though the pictures would come out very dark but most of them were still on the bright side. there was no photo that was too dark.

as we walked through Ephesus there we had our own personal photographer fallow us around and take our photos as we explored through the ruins.

We started off at one end and then made our through. Once we came to the end we were in front of the theater that they had build. our guide told us that this was the place where St. Paul had come to preach. the first time he had come to Ephesus the people had liked him so much that they begged him to stay. but he told them that he had to leave, and if it was gods will he would return. later he came back and he started to preach. they gave him from 11am -4pm (known as the dead hours due to the heat) when he talked however every one came to listen. this then made the merchants mad because there was no one at their shops. so the merchants went to the front of the theater seats and started to chant against St. Paul. when the city leader found out about this he sent a message to the theater telling them that St. Paul was a roman and that he was under Romes protection. This saved Paul and then he escaped.

It was also believed that the house of the virgin Mary was close. We did go to the house and we took some holy water. as we were walking out we did see that there were hundreds of tied pieces of paper on the wall. These where promises to Mary that they will make there life better, or be a better person.

we then went to our hotel and after checking some emails I went out with my mom through the city. there we went to the dock and took some photos. we even saw a new kitten with its mom. After our hotel we went back to our hotel and went to sleep