Amasra

So, we wanted to see the Black Sea (and no, it's not actually black in color--apparently some people actually thought that, ha ha). We were originally planning on going to Sile, but when we told Husnu that, he was adimate that that was the wrong choice; especially after telling him we liked to get a taste of the real culture and life of the countries we visit. So instead, he suggested we go to Amasra and introduced us to his travel agent friend that he trusted.

The travel agents we worked with are Mohamet (Mo) and Abraham. They were really great and we quickly became friends. I think we adopted them. They helped us figure out a place to stay and the bus situation and we were off to Amasra. We also ended up stopping by to say hi allot and they invited us to dinner one night with them. We tried to pay, but apparently for Ramadan, that's not allowed because it's about generosity. It was a great meal and they're really fun to hang out with. We're trying to talk them into moving to Seattle and opening a Turkish restaraunt-I'll let you know how that goes.

The bus company could use some better organization, but whatever. After an overnight bus (tired) and not getting as much sleep on it as we thought we would, we arrived in Amasra at 7am with no clue where to go. As we walked across the street to begin figuring where to go, a guy on a bike comes up to us and asks where we are going. We show him the name of the place, Kuskayaski Pensiyon and music to our ears, says... Tekla Katie? Whoohoo! The owner of the Pension had come to meet us. :) Turns out the pension was only a block up (in the opposite direction we were headed, of course). He shows us directly to our rooms and says sleep... so we did. Once we napped and got moving, we headed to reception. The owner, Sumari, didn't speak much english, so he had he friend that did, come in and help. We got checked in and he gave us some hot water for our Nescafe. awesome! :) While I waited for the water to heat, I was chatting with Ozden, the english speaking friend and he invited us to dinner. It's always funny at first, you're not sure, but then you give in. And it was great, we ended up hanging out with him the whole time, like our own personal friend and tour guide. We were adopted again... we could get use to this.

We headed out and walked around Amasra for a while. Checked out the beaches/ports, walked around the little island part of Amasra that is connected by a little tiny walking or single car bridge. The place is really small, but really cute and we were about the only tourists there. When full of tourists, Amasra is primarily visited by Turkish travellers, so not allot of folks speak english. Which is fun and interesting. When ordering lunch, definitely interesting. :) We thought we were ordering a Pida/wrap type sandwich for lunch. But, what we actually ordered, Pide, is Turkish Pizza--it was yummy, so can't complain. :) And, we learned a new word-Pide.

After a little exploring, we ventured back to meet Ozden for dinner. It was great, we went to a nice restaraunt called Cinar Balik (Tree Fish in English-funny). We had so much fun. A few of them spoke a little english and others showed up throughout the evening. We even started to learn some Turkish words, it was fun. We had fish, which I never would have been daring to order in this form, but it was really good. It was tiny little fish called Mosquite. They were basically gutted, cleaned, and fried. you had to pull them open, pull out the meat and seperate the spine. It was really good. We also had a friendly little cat hanging around that liked to jump on our laps and was really happy when we gave it some fish. The cats here are pretty funny. They're not completely stray like in Mexico, but still kinda stray. People seem to just adopt whichever cats adopt them. This one was barking up the wrong tree looking for a nipple, hehe.

One of the men at dinner that spoke great english, had a daughter learning english at college in Ataturk (I think) and she happened to be in town, so she came and met us the next day to hang out. We went to the beach and swam in the black sea and soaked up some sun. Seriously, I've never sunbathed so much in my life as on this trip. At one point, Ozdun made himself a wig out of seaweed, itwas pretty funny. :)

After the beach, Ozden took us out on his boat so we could see the city from the water. It was really beautiful. We even ran into Sumari doing laps from the small port to the big port. We seemed to run into him everywhere we went, but he was magically already back at the hostel when we got there. We're thinking he's actually a twin, but keeps it a secret. :) An interesting boat adventure-we like to tease that Ozden tried to sink us... The plug on the bottom of his boat came out while we were in the sea and we started taking on water pretty rapidly. he started the bilge pump and got us safely to the little port, which was closer. Two friends of his helped finally find the plug, wherever it shot off to and plugged it, so all was good again. We treated Ozden to dinner this time, cause again, we weren't allowed to pay the night before & went down early that night.

The next day, we got some more beach time and Ozden introduced us to Gusemel (sp?) a flat fresh tortilla with meat or cheese in it... yum. Then we did some more walking around the city and checked out the old castle, the walls of which were still there, but newer (than the castle) buildings had been built within it. Apparantly, many years ago, a man came to fight for and conquor the city of Amasra, but when he got there, he decided it was so beautiful, he didn't want to destroy it. So instead of beginning a fire-fight, he sent his second in command to go demand the key to the city... & so it was conquored, yet still preserved.

That night, we had a bus to catch, overnight again, back to Istanbul. We headed back after sunset and sat and drank tea with Sumari and Ozden, and well as another friend of theirs. It was tons of fun and we had a great time being temporarily adopted. We headed up to the bus and Ozden insisted on carrying a bag and walking us up. It was great and hilarious. The true adopted feeling was when he loaded our bags, talked to the bus driver for us, then got on the bus to show us where our seats were. :) He then waited outside the bus for it to leave & see us of. Seriously, we had a great time in Amasra. It's fun being adopted by locals. :D

Off to Istanbul again...