February 20

This morning we left the hotel at, wait for it… 9:30! What joy! It was so nice to have an extra hour in the morning. It gave me a chance to do the reading that I was too sleepy to do last night. For some reason, I just could not keep my eyes open last night. I fell asleep on my bed from about 7:30 till 8:30 last night, then I woke up, got changed for bed, and slept from 9:30 until 7:30 this morning. I guess I am just getting a little pooped with all the travelling we are doing. I am so glad that spring break is just around the corner.
But yes, we left at 9:30 to head to Perge, another ancient city. Though an interesting city in and of itself, it pales in comparison to the finds at Ephesus. We did have a chance to climb up to the acropolis and take some pictures of the city below. Part of the reason it is less impressive is the progress of the excavations, there is still much left to uncover. One of the more interesting fetures of the city is the main entrance. An originally Hellenistic structure composed of two circular towers, the gate was rebuilt with the financial support of a wealthy woman. There are two inscriptions found on the tower, one which identifies her father, but here he is known as Plancia Magna. Her brother is also identified in relation to her. Very cool for this time period. Women usually had no control over their own finances, it was passed from father to husband.
After Perge we grabbed some lunch at a restaurant nearer to the next site, Aspendos. The restaurant offered fresh trout as a main course, and it was actually very good. Krentz sat next to me at this meal and mimicked what he considered to be “excellent technique” for getting the meat off the bones. I didn’t let it slip that in one of my forkfuls, I chomped down on several tiny bones.
We went to the theater at Aspendos, which is the best preserved theater in all of Asia Minor and arguably all of the ancient world. Caroline gave her presentation here about the history of the theater. According to the legend, the acoustics are so good in the theater that when the king was in the upper section of the seating, he heard someone say that the proncess should be given to this person as their wife. The king wanted to find out who said this and discovered that the designer of the theater, Xeno, had whispered his desire while on stage. The king was so impressed that he did give Xeno his daughter. I hope the daughter was equally impressed.
After the theater was stopped for a fewm minutes at one of the best preserved aqueducts in Asia Minor. Though relatively short (1 km), the aqueduct still has its two pressure towers to control the water flow. The aqueduct is 15 meters high and the towers are 30 meters high.
We headed back to the hotel for dinner and homework. I got caught up with some of my schoolwork tonight. Going to bed so early lately has made me a little behind in my journals, but now I am good.