This morning at breakfast Millie noticed this decorative rifle on the wall and loudly asked “Dad, when we get home can you teach me to shoot a gun like that?” To be clear, we are not a gun-owning or hunting family. Between this and the ketchup incident we had done enough for America’s reputation in this small Turkish town. It was time to leave.

We have only one Turkish breakfast buffet remaining. I will miss them. So many new sauces and spreads to try.

We got on the road towards Selçuk, home of our final ancient city for a while, Ephesus. It was a 2 hour drive and went quickly. The Turkish highway system is probably better maintained than the US’s.

We checked into a new hotel. Despite the temperature being similar here, there was a breeze and it’s drier, so it felt tolerable.

After checking in we were asked to move the car to a designated parking spot. We had parked on a hill on a tiny cobblestone road behind another car. Nick struggled to reverse uphill in our powerless manual Fiat. It was very stressful and profanities were said, but we eventually got it to where it needed to be.

Once we had unloaded (emotionally and physically) we walked to the archaeological museum. Millie was as thrilled about another museum of ruins as you can imagine. I asked her to choose things to draw still lifes of which bought us about 20 minutes.

We tried to sell her on the statue of Artemis by making it hilarious that she had so many boobs. Results were mixed.

After the museum we stopped at a nearby cafe for lunch. It really gave us the full “last day in Turkey” show: kebabs, the owner trying to sell us rugs, and a cat that kept jumping on our laps. We all made up names for the cat. Me: Brave. Nick: Jumpy. Millie: Runaway Food Cat.

We didn’t want to spend yet another afternoon stuck in our hotel room or in a hotel pool, so we built the energy and hydration level necessary to walk to the Basilica of Saint John. This large church was built at the same time as Hagia Sophia. But unlike the Hagia Sophia, when this one collapsed, no one rebuilt it. We walked around for a while imagining it in place.

There was an active archaeological team excavating areas of it. This sparked Millie’s interest and she spent about 20 minutes hitting rocks together “being an archaeologist”.

I prompted her to look around and find interesting things humans may have left, like pieces of pottery. As she was searching we found a bone sticking out of the dirt. It looked and felt very old. We were nearby the tombs area so Nick and I thought maybe, possibly, we had found an ancient human.

We even went so far as to alert the archaeology team and take them to our bone. But when the guy came over he said “I’m a restorer and all the archaeologists have gone home” … so who knows.

With that excitement done, we still had a few hours before dinner. We are saving the big site for the morning, so we decided to walk 20 minutes to the temple of Artemis. We bribed Millie with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice if she could make it there and back without whining.

One we arrived it was hard to believe that this was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was empty and the single remaining column out of the previous 127 was quite sad. The most interesting part was the stork nest on the very top. We watched the mama stork bring food to her babies over and over again.

But at least the walk was pleasant and got us sweaty enough for our offering of juice (and beer for us).

This cafe overlooked a large pedestrian area. Millie ran around by herself for a while and then found some friends. I’ve been carrying around balloons in my purse and it’s been a great trick to find other kids. All kids love balloons. They aren’t precious if they pop or if we give them away.

Millie ran back to us and told us “my friends don’t speak English so I just smile and wave”. Finally she seems to be getting more comfortable with the language barrier.

Everyone was having such a nice time that we ordered another round and a simple sandwich for dinner. After all but one of the balloons popped, we walked back to the hotel.

Millie took a shower with the surviving balloon, dressed it, and then tucked it into bed. So for all her growth socializing, she is also turning into an isolated weirdo. My sweet traveler girl.