Day 12: Ephesus, Turkey

Today I got my second day off from classes on the ship, because our excursion started pretty early in the morning. The port today was Ephesus, Turkey; this is the portion of Turkey in Asia, so we got to add another continent to the trip. Although I went to Ephesus two years ago through a BVU Travel Course, Clint had never been there before. Also, Ephesus is my favorite site for ancient ruins (at least, of the ones I've seen so far), so I was excited to go back.

We had booked a group tour, and it turned out to just be us and one other couple, which was really great because we basically had a private tour. Ephesus is an absolutely beautiful marble city, and much of the city is still there, after thousands of years. Cleopatra came here, and Paul the Apostle preached here (and lived here for a while). This time, I got to see both the main city area and the terrace houses (we had to skip the houses last time). It's absolutely huge, covered in white marble, mosaics, frescoes, etc.

After our tour (which lasted about four hours), we stopped by the Starbucks to use their wifi. I bought wifi on the ship, but it's so slow that it doesn't work for me to upload the blogs. So if you are a regular reader, that's why you saw a bunch of days pop up all at once a while ago, and again when we exit the cruise on the last day.

When we got back on the ship, we wandered over to our favorite lounge for some Diet Coke to help us wake up a bit. We accidentally walked into a sodoku challenge that was already started, so I went ahead and played along, and ended up coming in first place (thanks, Mom, for teaching me!). I won a super amazing keychain and pen.

In the evening, we had a reservation for the Chef's Table, the very exclusive restaurant on the ship where only 12 people can eat each night. Today is our 14th anniversary, so we wanted to celebrate by going to this special restaurant. One of the main chefs for the ship created a tasting menu, and we got wine pairings with each course. Our meal included the following: (1) lobster & king crab salad, (2) trio of mini soups, (3) duck egg rolls with sake, (4) lamb shank on top of potato risotto, and (5) trio of desserts. I told the waiter that it was our anniversary, so they also brought out a chocolate cake with candles. Then the chef brought out a second round of 5 different mini-desserts for all of us. The basket of bread was also really amazing. It was a fun day.