Istanbul not Constantinople: Şile

April 7^th

Well it was a busy weekend to say the least. Friday we, myself, Vania, Jeremy, Andre, Mi Mi and Samo, set off from the Üsküdar bus station to Şile on the Black Sea. I was left to ‘organize’ this adventure. So all I did was briefly look up bus times. Meh they leave every hour and we can come back whenever. But only when we got to the bus station and the bus was 3 minutes late, did I start to think “Ohh maybe I didn’t figure this out enough.” But the bus was simply running on Turkish time. Without reservations or tickets we hopped on the bus. And for the next hour and a half I felt like I was driving with my family. No I’m not reminiscing of cute family road trips, I’m remembering fighting with my siblings in the back seat and my parents telling me to be quiet. You know you have close friends when… After an hour and half and 9tl (4.5$CAD) we made it to Şile. The drive into the town was amazing, you could see the black sea and rocks with castles coming out of the water, and real houses. Oh how I was bubbling with excitement.

As soon as we excited the bus and stretched our legs it was about 1 in the afternoon. But for one of the first times since arriving here we all felt overcome with a feeling of peace and relaxation. The town is was almost quiet. We were in the town center but there was barely any traffic, just lots of men drinking tea in front of shops, dogs lazing around on the sidewalks. I couldn’t help but just take in a deep breathe and feel relief. The sun was shining and the streets were slow and quiet and I skipped my Friday afternoon class for it. We quickly ordered some Lahmacuns for a picnic later and took off to the beach. The beach was easy to find, we walked down a staircase that led to a large marina. Its not exactly summer yet, so all the boats are still ‘winter-parked’ on shore – for lack of a better term. We kept walking along the shore towards what looked like a castle on a rock in the sea. When we got there we were all so excited, we climbed on rocks, took millions of pictures, walked into the water and immediately regretted not bringing our swim suits. But even for a Canadian those water were still very cold. The lifeguard in me also went into safety mode scanning for current or rips and of course the ultimate question – what kinds of fish live in the black sea? Cute, ugly, poisonous or sharks? Either way I should look that up so I don’t get paranoid next time. Admitting those were the clearest bluest waters I had ever seen, besides the ones in southern Nova Scotia, those don’t count because they are unbearably cold.

After having our fill of beach, we ate our lahmacuns in front of a restaurant in one of the rocks on the water. The restaurant was closed because it’s the off season. So naturally the boys had to climb all over the rock, and disturb all the lizards. Never in my life have I seen lizards in the wild. I thought snakes were bad, but lizards have claws and are slizery. Shiver. One crawled across my foot one day on campus, I squealed, fell to the ground and then immediately tried to find it. They are gross, and they love rocks, and Turkey has plenty of rocks. 8 lizards came crawling out of a hole that one of the boys stepped on. So gross I couldn’t even get a picture. After eating we climbed up along the coast to a look out spot where we could the beach and Marina where we had come from, and a lighthouse and cove that was ahead of us. Naturally more pictures and some fooling around and messing with each other. I crawled down the front of the edge where there was some stairs and rocks that you could walk around on. The waves were crashing against the rocks and it felt very similar to being at peggy’s cove. Except there was no place to sit down, there was a lot of broken glass and prickly plants everywhere…also lizards crawling everywhere.

Off we wander again along the shore. We stopped in at the lighthouse that had some historic significance, unfortunately the description was only in Turkish so I couldn’t get any information on it. But we were able to take a short rest and have some sunflower seeds and get some pictures of the rocky coast. But soon we off again, walking through the streets. As we moved further away from the city center the quieter it became. As we walked by a coffee shop all the men outside fell silent. Not many woman in those parts, but at least we gave them something to talk about. Shortly we came across another beach…a party beach. It a little larger than Mahoney’s beach and on either end of the beach were two bars! Too bad they were closed for the season. But that did not stop us from enjoying ourselves. I climbed the lifeguard tower, ran around the beach…you know stuff I normally do when I’m at the beach. We all hung out in the sand just having a good time as the hours passed by, we considered camping on the beach.

Eventually we made our way back to the town, but first we stopped for pizza. I have not had pizza since I’ve been here and I didn’t expect much from the pizza but it was pretty good. It took awhile but it was basically home made – we could see the old man mincing the veggies at a snails pace. We had convinced ourselves we had missed the last bus at the rate the pizzas had taken. But it didn’t stop there. The shop keepers insisted we stay for tea, and after tea they insister we stay for a game of tavla. There is always time for tea and a game of tavla in Turkey. Although we didn’t have time the hospitality was truly appreciated. Fortunately we had not missed the last bus! We sat in sweet shop gad some more tea and some Turkish delight and watched the residence enjoy their Friday evening. We made it back to the university by midnight and I went to bed with a tan...woooo.

The next day I figured I’d take it easy, maybe even study for my three midterms next week…nope, time to go on a hike. We quickly ate lunch at Mirhan and bragged about our awesome previous day for those who failed to come with us. Then we, myself Vania, Samo and Sebi set off on our hike with Jeremy leading the way. We walked behind the university and along the sketchy back road and up behind the hill that we regularly climb. If I haven’t mentioned it before Turkey is full of hills. The kind of hills you dread to climb, the kind of hills that may make you think twice about going somewhere. And now we are purposely going out hiking? A regular walk in Istanbul is a short hike by Nova Scotian standards. On top of these steep hills it was a very humid day. The first hill we climbed did not take too much time but we all felt fairly winded at the top. Luckily there was an awesome view of our campus and a good portion of the Asia side going towards Europe. So we all stood around trying to recognize the taller buildings and pointing out certain areas we though we knew. After we had finished admiring we kept on to the next hill. On the way there we stumbled across a bee keeping area with a bee keeping attendant. Samo who was so happy and high on life walked very close to the area and greeted “Merhaba” to the bee keeper in the friendliest tone. The startled bee keeper looked at Samu and yelled in Turkish “Are you crazy? Get out of here!” Oh how we laughed.

We continued through on to a small village area that was not as well of as our area. There were fewer cars and not as much noise. But there were lots of kids playing in the streets and chickens everywhere. We stopped briefly to have some ice cream and we watched some teens do tricks with their dogs. We continued our climb through the village, slowly. I felt more humbled as we walked through the village knowing that I have an incredible amount of wealth compared to the entire village. It is quite shocking, but not surprising to see such disparities in wealth as you traverse the city. And when you happen across those areas you cannot help but feel humbled and guilt. Although the village may not have much wealth, it had a lot of character and a lot of happy looking children.

At the top of the village was the second hill, which was also covered in rocks and lizards, it was also covered in goats. There was even a shepherd herding them. It is quite a site to see from afar, you see clustered city scape and above it all a green area covered in rocks and sheep frolicking all over it. At the edge of the cliff area was a spectacular view of Bosanci and Maltepe and the Prince’s Islands. It was nice to be above it all; the city, the noise and the humidity.