I suppose it is appropriate that my 50th blog posting would be about Trabzon, considering how much time I ultimately ended up spending there. The title of the blog comes from the name of the name of the ancient Greek colony that was founded here. At any rate, our bus arrived at the bus station early in the morning of the 17th. We took the transportation that was provided to the city center and met Hüsniye in the main square in front of the McDonalds.
Hüsniye led us into a dolmuş and we rode to her apartment. Hüsniye and I had not seen each other since we had met in May but continued to speak online and had developed a good friendship. When I saw her, it was not strange it all. It was as if I was meeting an old friend again. I sort of felt bad for Alex because all he could do is sit there and watch us talk.
After a short ride we got off and cut through a paved parking lot to the street on which Hüsniye lived. When I met her last time, we had always met in the city center, so I had never been to her apartment before. We took our luggage up the stairs to the second floor. The apartment was nice I thought (definitely nicer than my accommodations in Istanbul but not as nice as Altuğ's apartment). The really interesting thing to me was the bathroom situation. The water heater was powered by gas fuel. You could even see the flames warming the outside of the container (they were small flames like one of those old gas burners). The other interesting part of the bathroom was that there were two toilets (in two separate rooms). One toilet was the normal western style toilet and the other was one of the traditional turkish toilets. (See my earlier rant about those).
We put our things down and Hüsniye needed to go to work. Her mother offered to prepare breakfast for us (she lives in the apartment with both of her parents). At age 25 as a working professional, it would be strange here in the US for someone to be living with their parents unless their parents were will or needed to be cared for. In Turkey, the situation is much different. Families usually live together until they get married (and sometimes afterward too). Based on my observations, the concept of family is much closer here than it is in the US. Of course you see these relationships much less in westernized Istanbul, but out here in the Eastern part of Turkey, traditional attitudes are the norm.
Hüsniye mother was a very sweet and mother lady. Even though she couldn't speak a word of English, you could tell that she had a warm heart. She also went out of her way to ensure that Alex and I were comfortable. She made us sucuk ve yumurta (sausage and eggs), which is a traditional Turkish breakfast. This was accompanied with bread (freshly baked that morning), cheese, and jam. Yum!
Alex and I were very tired from our trip (neither of us slept well on the bus) and we both wanted to take a nap. I would be sleeping the guest room for our two day visit and Alex would sleep on the couch. Not such a great deal for Alex but from what I could tell the couch was relatively comfortable.
We woke up from our nap refreshed and ready to eat lunch. Alex and I ventured out into the city in order to find lunch. We found a nice fish place on the coast. Alex had a fish sandwich (grilled fish) and I had a grilled fish plate (the amazing thing was that this plate was only something like 6 or 8 liras). Where can you find grilled fish in the US for that price? :) While at this one local restaurant, the owner was very interested in Alex and me. It was probably because they don’t see many Americans in Trabzon considering that most prefer the Eastern Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts. He brought out his son to serve us though, and we could tell by his posture that he wanted to practice English but he was a little shy in doing so. With that in mind, Alex and I decided to torture/help the boy by only speaking English to him. He loosened up and started speaking to us in English. The conversation was simple dealing with primarily school, subjects of choice, age, whether or not we enjoyed Turkey, etc.
Following lunch and tea, we set out to explore Trabzon. Since I had already been before, I acted as Alex's tour guide for the day. We saw the Aya Sofia (not the one in Istanbul), and walked along the coast. Truthfully, Trabzon doesn't have that many sites to see in the city itself. Most of the cool stuff is located around the city nearby.
At the end of the day I decided to get Hüsniye a present to say thanks for letting us stay there - a backgammon board (surprisingly she didn't already have one in her home). We walked along the city walls and back towards the center square. We met Hüsniye and Bahar at the city center (I am pretty good at finding this central square after all of this). Bahar and Hüsniye decided to take us to this place called Sera Golu (Sera Lake). It was a few kilometers to the west of Trabzon and at the beginning of the mountains. We got out and saw a pretty mountain lake nestled between the mountains. I must admit that I thought Uzun gol was better, but for something close it was definitely not a bad substitute. We walked around the lake and talked for a while.
Hüsniye and Bahar decided to take us to dinner at the famous Akçaabat köfte Lokantası. This is the very same restaurant I ate at when we visited Trabzon during Spring Break. There is no need for me to describe the meal again as it was the same and still delicious. Bahar was nice enough to pay for our meal (yay Turkish hospitality). Actually, one thing I did want to mention that I find odd about the Turkish hospitality is that when you bring your friends and are with another friend, the other friend (not the friend of friends) seems to pay. For example, Bahar paid even though technically I came because I knew Hüsniye and was friends with her. Similarly, when we came for Spring Break, Zafer paid even though Sonya, Em, and I were there because of Sonya's connection with Halis. I am not sure if this is a Black Sea tradition or a Turkish tradition, but it struck me as really odd. Since all of these people knew Hüsniye, it could also just be something they do amongst their friends. I am not really sure.
After dinner we decided to walk along the Black Sea (the restaurant is located right on the sea). The evening was comfortable (the cool water keeps the temperatures along the Black Sea pretty mild during the winter. After about 5 minutes of walking a policeman stopped us and asked us if we were tourist. He could tell immediately by the fact that we were conversing in English. We said that we were and he asked why we were in Trabzon. I explained that I was visiting my friend Hüsniye. He then asked us if we met on the internet. We both laughed and said no. Its a funny thought though. I wondered how many couples he met in Trabzon where they met over the internet. He then said that in addition to his day job as a policeman, he runs rafting trips to his home town in Yusufeli (Artvin province). He gave us his number and told him to give him a call if we were in town (in July I did end up returning and would end up going rafting with him...which was awesome).
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