Tuesday in Turkey!

I never thought I would be in two completely different countries in Europe in less than six days but yet here I am! We landed in Izmir, Turkey yesterday afternoon and have had a whirlwind of activity since! I haven't had much time to get out of the hotel and get photos but I will soon! Here was my first look at Turkey!

I had a funny experience on the plane. An older lady and her husband were sitting next to me in the 3-hour flight from Amsterdam to Izmir. She asked me where I was from and I answered "Tennessee". With a very puzzled look she asked "where's that?!" ... I then realized I was very likely the only American on the plane, and that I don't think I'd ever met anyone who truly didn't know where good ole Rocky Top was! Culture shock!

When we got to the hotel and settled in several of my colleagues and I decided to explore the local area for dinner. We found a very nice Mediterranean restaurant on the sea. It was a beautiful night and the weather is very nice here. The food was really good and at the end of the meal they brought us Turkish coffee and Turkish delight! 

 

After dinner, we decided to take a walk down the boardwalk and came back up several blocks to our hotel. This is a strange place to be in right now. We have seen small riots, burning fires, protests and lots of police with automatic weapons. We are about 500 miles from the Syrian border here and there are refugees here, as well as people who are just very passionate about the situation going on there. It has been a strange experience because it seemed like I was watching something on CNN, but I'm not. I'm actually seeing it with my own eyes. Very surreal. Although we have been assured that the city is really quite nice and mostly safe there are areas that are not very good here, and we all are being vigilant of the riots. 

It's really quite incredible to see some of what I'm seeing now. While we are perfectly safe and staying in a very nice luxury hotel, there is poverty and violence not far. It's been heartbreaking to see little kids trying to sell things to tourists and it really makes me humble. The Turkish economy overall is really quite good and growing fast but there still appears to be much poverty in this area. 

I hope to get out a little tomorrow and get some photos but our conference is in full-swing early in the morning, so we will see. :)