West Coast Trip'n

The third week of school flew by pretty fast. On Wednesday Lexie planned out a weekend itinerary starting from Izmir (southwest, Turkey) back to Istanbul. At first it was only her and I going. Then we figured a blonde woman and a black woman backpacking through Turkey would not be the safest thing. So we invited Ben, Damian and Zack to come along with us.
Thursday was pretty busy since we all had class, last minuet details to complete before the trip and I had to babysit a 2 year old Turk named Kayla. Kayla is adorable. She’s highly intelligent and already in kindergarten. She was born in California so her mommy (in Turkish anne (an nay)), a child psychologist wants her to learn English immediately. As well as pass all of her developmental markers. A few minuets into my hour session she nicely explained Kayla’s developmental stages and how I could help her reach them. At the end Kayla said in Turkish that she did not want me to leave and helped press the button to the elevator. I’m so glad I have this opportunity. I miss my goddaughter Serenity everyday. Seeing Kayla will fill Serenity’s void.
Our weekend journey up the west coast of Turkey began at 3:30am Friday morning. I called for a cab in Turkish to take the 5 of us downtown to Sariyer. Everyone was ready except for Zack who kept the cab driver waiting for an extra 10 minuets. We stopped a little farther in Sariyer than we wanted to because no one could remember how to say stop (dur). We got out the cab and started walking to find a formal bus stop for the all night bus to Taksim. I happened to look up and the bus was coming towards us. We waved our hands and yelled stop. Thankfully the bus did stop for us. (Something to note, in Turkey bus drivers stop whenever they want. The key mission for them is to make as much money as they can.) We got on the bus to cheers from the 4 men that were already on the bus. A few minuets later one of the older guys came over and introduced his self and danced for us. Shortly after our greeting he sat down to converse with the other guys and then feel into a deep sleep in a matter of seconds. This was a hilarious sight because his snores filled the bus.
We arrived in Taksim at about 4:30am and caught a cab for 40TL to Atuturk airport. I must say it was kind of weird going through pre 9/11 airport security. I had a Red Bull in my backpack and Zack had a water bottle and we went through security with no problems. We had about an hour before take off so we ordered breakfast at Starbucks. Soon it was time to board the plane. We were shuttled on the tarmac to the plane where we had to climb up stairs into the plane. I settled in and thought to myself, “I will have an epic nap.” Boy was I wrong. There was a child behind me who kept arguing with his mother and then there was noise of breakfast trays. Lexie and Zack made sure to wake me up for breakfast which was peynir (cheese) ve (and) domato (tomato) tost (sandwiches) or kek (cake) accompanied with suyu (fruit juice) or kahve (coffee). We landed and I immediately rushed to the bathroom. Normally this experience would not be worth mentioning. But this time was my first experience with a toilet in the floor. Needless to say I said a few choice words in my head. Then looked on the floor and saw the reflection of a toilet bowl and waited for that stall to open.
Once outside we boarded the free shuttle bus to Selcuk a small town 2km away from Ephesus. Then we caught the dolmus for 2TL to Ephesus. We arrived at the base and had the option of walking 2km up or down. We choose to take what we thought would be a shuttle up. The shuttle turned out to be a horse drawn carriage; the 5 of us plus a Norweigen couple piled into the tiny carriage for 30TL. Lexie unfortunately ended up with the worst seat and simply had half her body in the seat and the other half on the ledge. We road in the carriage up hill on paved and dirt roads for about 15 minuets while waking up fully and chatting with the norweigns. The couple was retired and decided to sail up the west coast of Turkey and come on land to see a few sights. Finally we arrived to the top and whipped out our handy Muze Kart, which saved us 20TL. We attempted to use Lexie’s Lonely Planet Turkey book to give ourselves a self guided tour but eventually gave up. At this point our group split up because Zack is cheap and Damian said he wouldn’t understand everything since his first language is Polish. We asked around for pricing and were told 100TL for 1.5 hours. We said never mind we are students and left. Two minuets an old man named Gunduz said he would give us an hour tour for 50TL. He was great, very informative and answered all of our questions. In the end he gave us the whole tour.
On the dolmus back to Selcuk we met a backpacker named Alex, a Canadian now working in Norway. He joined us for lunch and toured the Cistern, St. John the Baptist church, a mosque and the Ephesus museum. We arrived in Izmir after a two-hour bus ride from Selcuk. Izmir is a beautiful city filled with lots of hustle and bustle. The city is on the Aegan’s rocky coast and surrounded by mountains. As fate would have it, Alex was in the same hostel as us, Vatan Otel. After settling in we wandered the closing bazaar and the coast for dinner. We decided to roam around after dinner and find a nice bar. We ended up walking in a group of 50-college freshman that were into the arts. After about 5 minuets of walking with them we ended up in a square dedicated to Atuturk. The students perform charades type of games for each other and us. Alex thought it would be good for us to do something as well. So we played Red light, Green light and left shortly after. While searching for a bar to hang out in we came across a bar with a drag queen singing. I was quite surprised to see this and decided to end my night early.
The next morning Lexie, Ben and I went to see Angora, which was right around the corner from our hostel, the bazaar, a clock town and a castle. While at the castle we brought hand made bags made from wool from women who were making rugs. After this we checked out of the hostel and made our way up the coast to Bergama to see the Acropolis. Boy was that an interesting ride. We were given assigned seats on the dolmus and the Jandarma (military police) stopped the bus to check everyone’s IDs. I was able to see pomegranate groves while I was waiting. A taksi driver immediately approached us in Bergama to see where we wanted to go. He took us to the Acropolis and waited for us for an hour for 50TL. The Acropolis had breath-taking views of Bergama and the ruins. A few minuets after being on top of the mountain I jokingly said “I’m pretty sure you’d die if you fell here.” Literally 5 minuets later Damian fell backwards about 3 feet on to a rock cliff; thankfully he only scrapped up his right arm and side.
We caught the 5:30 bus to Ayvalik, a beautiful seaside town from the otogar for 6.5TL. We arrived in two hours later and stayed at Taksiyarhis Pansiyon, an eclectic hostel. The owner of the hostel showed us a wonderful Turkish restaurant a few minuets from the hostel where we ate a combination of specialties for 8TL. We roamed the town after dinner and ended up in a pool hall. Alex was the only one out of the 6 of us who was actually decent. So he showed me a few pointers and at the end of the night I knocked in two of my balls and the 8-ball.
The next morning we woke up and head out for Edermit and ultimately Troy. Alex on the other hand was going to Lesvos, a Greek island off the coast of Turkey. After a 15-minuet ride out of the city he transferred to another bus. We said our goodbyes and made our way to Edermit, an erie Cold War era town. I purchased the bus tickets for Troy for 15TL each instead of 18TL. There was about an hour wait for the bus so we roamed the town and picked up borek for lunch. I went to put my backpack in the bottom of the bus and then I saw a familiar backpack, Alex’s backpack. I hoped on the bus and said it was meant to be. Alex and I chatted about his life in Norway and globalization until it was time for him to truly depart. We said goodbye again and I waved to him out of the window. It felt a bit weird like I was saying good-bye to a good friend. I guess because Alex was the first person I actually had to say goodbye to in Turkey. We arrived in Channakle and had to take the dolmus from under a bridge to Troy.
Troy was rather boring after seeing the Acropolis so we ended up staying for an hour. We had about 6 hours before our bus headed out so we explored the bazaar at Channakle and ate dinner at a nice fish restaurant. I ordered shrimp and everyone else ordered sea bass. Unfortunately there were only 3 left so Zack had Ibream. I noticed a man leave the restaurant to go fishing after the waiter told us about the Sea Bass. As we were packing up the same fisherman walked through the restaurant with a sea bass flapping in his hand. Now that’s what I call fresh seafood! We wandered around a bit and I began to get worried about the bus. We made our way to the otogar to find out that Lexie could not get a seat on our bus and that we had to go back to the waterfront to pick up our bus tickets. Finally everything was settled and we all boarded our buses and the ferry for a 5-hour ride to Istanbul. We arrived back on campus at 7am. All in I had an amazing time on this trip. I’m so glad Lexie and Ben were able to plan out the trip and take the lead in traveling.

You can take a look at my photos here!