After our late arrival via bus and a nice sleep at a somewhat sketchy hotel, we were ready to explore the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon.
It was sketchy because adjacent hotels were frequented by "natashas," which is Turkish slang for Russian prostitutes. Apparently their blonde hair and light features make them all the rage in Turkey. Much to my dismay, the shower in the hotel room was actually combined with the bathroom. There was no tub to separate the two and there was a drain in the middle of the floor. I don't like stepping in other people's shower water and so I didn't like it. It was already a running joke on the trip that I didn't like showers without shower curtains. I don't think that's so unreasonable. I mean who would want to step in someone else's shower water (isn't that where all of the dirt and nastiness goes?). At any rate, they made fun of me.
The city itself was quite a bit different than all of the other places we had visited up until this point. Instead of Kurdish inhabitants, the majority of people here were of Laz decent. The Laz were a people that lived on the Black Sea coast of Turkey and Georgia. Some of them still speak the Laz language. Apparently there are some stigmas about referring to someone as Laz. I am not sure if this is actually true, but this is what I heard.
We began our day walking towards the central square of the city. I knew we were back in civilization when I saw the McDonalds on the corner of the square. For a small city of a little more than 200,000 I was surprised at some of the major fast food chains there. They had a McDonalds and Burger King right in the main square. I continued my Ataturk obsession by taking pictures in front of the main Ataturk statue. You would think that since there is one in every city that I would have eventually tired of it...and yet I didn't.
We walked down the hill to the seaside and began walking along the coast towards the Hagia Sophia. This is obviously not the same Hagia Sophia as the famous one in Istanbul. However, it was still a neat church to see. It was built during the 13th century when the city was the center of the Empire of Treibzond. The church still has a few frescoes preserved inside. The inside of the church was fairly small for a church (certainly not the same as the Aya Sofya in Istanbul). The ceiling and the walls were decorated with frescoes. Although some of the frescoes had been partially destroyed, many of them were still preserved and looked beautiful (see Trabzon pictures). Because the church was situated on the hills that roll towards the Black Sea, the other side of the church featured a great view of the Black Sea.
Afterwards, it was converted into a mosque when the Ottomans took over.
The area around the church was also quite lovely. It is located on a sloping hill allowing for a nice view of the Black Sea. Additionally, the surrounding area had tombstones of Ottoman graves. I really like looking at Ottoman tombstones (see my Eyup entry) because they are so unique.
After walking around, Sonya, Em, and I decided to have a tea in the courtyard restaurant directly adjacent to the Hagia Sophia. It was a really nice place to sit and enjoy the early afternoon.
After visiting the Hagia Sophia, we began walking back towards the city center. On the way back, we passed the ancient city walls of Trabzon. Upon further walking we came upon some sort of ceremony. I dont know what it was commemorating but it was neat to watch. People were playing live music on local instruments (there was some sort of reeded instrument that you can blow into and also a Black Sea fiddle). Several groups performed choreographing different dances. It was neat to watch the performances and get a sense of what the people of Trabzon and of Turkey enjoy watching for entertainment.
We also met up with our friend Ohad, who happened to be in Trabzon on the same day as us. He took many pictures (as he often did). He walked with us back towards our hotel. Em and Sonya went to the hotel room to freshen up a bit and Ohad and I went in search of a tavla board to pass some time. Not too far from the hotel, we found a parlor where men were smoking and playing Okey. As Ohad and I walk in, some people stared at us. As foreginers, we were used to being stared at and shrugged it off.
In the middle of our first or second game (can't remember which one but it was close to the beginning), Em and Sonya had decided that they were finished in the hotel and wanted to join us. However, we were in the all-male cafe, which while technically does not ban women, the social pressures prevent women from entering. The owner of the place encouraged Em and Sonya to come inside -- probably because he wanted more business!
Soon after, we said goodbye to Ohad. While Ohad and I had been playing games, Sonya was making us plans for dinner. Sonya's boyfriend, Seçkin, had a brother who happened to be in Trabzon the very same weekend as us for a cardiology clinic. Halis, Seçkin's brother, wanted to meet us and take us to dinner (Did I mention that I love Turkish hospitality?). However, there was only one problem with that. Halis and his friend Zafer could not speak English well enough to communicate with us. So instead, they had to bring a third friend along with us. This third friend was a very attractive Turkish girl. Her name was Husniye and she is a female Turkish dentist living in Trabzon. Husniye was a college friend of both Zafer and Halis and happened to know English quite well.
We met them in the city center and they took us in the car they had rented along the Black Sea. The car was a standard four door and with 6 people, 4 of us had to cram in the back. I ended up sitting next to Husniye. Soon, we had left the city limits of Trabzon and continued west. After about 10 minutes of driving, we had arrived in the town of Akçaabat. We parked and entered a nice restaurant along the Black Sea. Husniye told us that the town of Akçaabat and the specific restaurant we were in were famous for köfte, which is a type of beef with special spices in it.
We sat down in the restaurant and ordered drinks. The table got a pitcher of ayran (a traditional Turkish drink that is made from yogurt). The ayran was especially good here because it was home made (which I found during my time in Turkey was always better than the packaged stuff). We also had freshly baked bread, which is customary of most restaurants in Turkey. They then brought us the salad. In Turkey, the salads are made with a lot of things I don't like. They apparently really like cucumbers in their salad, which I absolutely hate. Because I did not eat my salad (and then did not eat it in a subsequent meal) it became a running joke with our new Turkish friends that I apparently hate all kinds of salad. I guess my eating tastes are strange and not very Turkish.
After the salad, we received the main course. It consisted of pilav (rice) and köfte. The köfte was pretty good. It probably wasn't my favorite of the different types of Turkish food I had, but especially the köfte at this place was pretty good. The people we were with turned out to be really nice too. Apparently, even though Zafer could barely speak a sentence of English, he was supposed to be traveling to work in a hospital in Cleavland next year. I told Husniye that he'd better start learning a lot more English because I doubted that anyone in Cleavland could speak Turkish fluently.
The rest of the dinner I don't really remember what we talked about (probably a function of writing this blog entry a year later). We probably talked about our experiences in Turkey and answered a lot of questions about the U.S. We told our new friends that we were planning on seeing Sumela Monestary (this was an absolute requirement by Em at the beginning of the trip) and we also indicated that we wanted to see Uzungöl, which literally means "long lake." Actually, I hadn't heard of the lake before because Em was in charge of the guide book, but we had seen a lot of great stuff so far, so I trusted her judgement. Anyways, despite the fact that Zafer, Halis, and Hüsniye had visited Sumela the day before, they offered to drive us to both places so we could see them both in one day. We were so lucky because otherwise we probably would not have had a chance to see both.
They drove us back to the square near our hotel and we made plans to get up the next morning and meet them and we retired to our sketchy, shower curtain-less hotel.
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