So, last weekend Dan, Sina, Claire, Austin, and I went to Amasra, which is this little city on the Black Sea. It was sooo beautiful, and so nice to see the sea again after Ankara. I miss large bodies of water! Anyway, we were given a lot of advice of what to do while we were there, but the piece we heard the most was "eat fish!"
We decided to go on Wednesday, got our tickets on Thursday, and left on Friday. We took the bus, and instead of it taking us straight to Amasra like we thought, it dropped us off in this little town thirty minutes away from Amasra, and then we had to take a series of dolmuses to the town itself at 12:30 in the morning. It was interesting. We found one of the pansiyons I had researched and talked the guy down from 25 YTL to 20 a night. The pansiyon was so cute - very brightly colored, and from the girls' room we had a view of the sea. It was also attached to a patisserie - so we had really good baklava both days. Also, it was about 20 feet from a mosque. I remember being woken up by the muezzin before dawn.
The next morning we woke up at 7:30 to go explore. The town is deserted at this time of the year, so we had it all to ourselves, but we also got stared at a lot. We met a woman who spoke no English but almost fluent German, and Sina just happens to be German and so she got us breakfast. We explored the kale area, climbed things we probably shouldn't have climbed, and went into holes we probably shouldn't have gone into. No one got hurt, though, so it's all good. Then, Claire decided she really wanted to climb the island that half of the city is built on. So we climbed to the top of the cliff and played around and relaxed for a while. Then we played around/bouldered/went swimming in the Black Sea, which is actually unpleasantly cold this time of year, and probably always. Then, lunch time! We had mezgit - probably the most amazing fish I've ever had. They were small and fried and we ate them whole, because the crispy outside made you not notice the bones. Then we walked around some more, just basically enjoying the relaxed feel of the place, and the sea, and the baklava. Then, some narghile, manti, gozleme, a beer, some exchanging of life stories and further bonding, and sleep.
We had been told that we would get bored in Amasra and so we should go visit Safranbolu. So, the next morning we hopped on a "bus" - a mini-dolmus, really - for the 1 1/2 hour ride to Safranbolu. This town is known for its well preserved Ottoman architecture, and the saffron which gives the city its name. And that's pretty much all it was. We walked around, visited the pazar, did some shopping, had some cay, and then we were like, okay, not much to do here. It was really cute and I'm glad we went, and I bought some cool stuff at the pazar, but seriously, I think you'd get bored more easily in Safranbolu than in Amasra. So, we got on the bus back home.
So, that was my weekend, and this week has mostly just been school and the gym and relaxing with my family, until last night. We went to If - this music venue - to see this clarinet player that Claire said was amazing and she'd heard in the states. He was amazing, and it was really fun, but the concert started at 12:30 and didn't end til 3:15, so we crashed at Austin's host family's house (they were SO nice), and then today I was really tired for the 7 HOURS OF CLASS that makes up my Thursdays. Then I took a one hour nap that lasted for 5 hours, and now I'm up, and my sleep schedule is probably screwed again for a while.
Tomorrow, we leave for KAPADOKYA! My favorite place ever. We're not staying in a cave hotel, so I'm a little bummed about that. But I really want to go back, so maybe next time. Yay! Okay done!
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