Weekend Trip to Lesvos

Alex had a three-day weekend, so we (and a number of his classmates) decided to take a short trip to Mylitini on the island of Lesvos, which is about an hour and a half away by ferry. The trip itself took considerably longer because of the customs lines on both ends. The Greek customs “line” was unbelievable, a purgatory on earth. It was that massive crush of sweaty, impatient humanity getting bottle-necked at one doorway which led to two passport control officers. Mercy. Those who had EU passports got through quickly, and even had enough time to find a cheap hotel and walk back and wait for the rest of us non-Schengen visa holders. Mylitini is a small city, but much larger than either Cunda or Ayvalık. It’s quite popular with Turkish tourists, with many restaurants offering a menu in Turkish. Some of our group had some more rural sights on the agenda, but the bus system ran so infrequently that those plans were abandoned. We walked all around Mylitini, stopping for coffee and other treats. The restaurants we chose had superb food, and wacky service. Better than the other way around, I think. The second day a small group of us walked up to the old fort and stopped at the archaeological museum on the way. The museum was small, but we enjoyed seeing the mosaics. The fort was the big hit—as you can see from the photos I took, it was in a spectacular setting. At one point in particular, the wall opened up to a sea view and just below there were fig trees. The sea breeze was infused with the aroma of the figs—it was mesmerizing! Our return ferry was not until 6pm, but we had to allow for getting some lunch, picking up our left luggage, walking to the port in time to go through customs. So, we had to turn back—sigh. Back at the hotel, we ran into two of Alex’s classmates who had a misadventure at the fort earlier. One of them fell and hit his head while climbing the fort walls. He had a bandage and still felt dizzy. We got him into a taxi to get to the port, rather than walk the 20 minutes in the midafternoon sun. It seems that he is OK now, but I hope he didn’t get a concussion… The ferry ride back was fine, but there was a similar (but much less horrible) crush at customs on the Turkish side. Even though we all went to the exit ramp early, and rushed to the passport control line, Alex and I were the last ones of our group through—I guess we didn’t hustle as much as we should have.

So now it’s Monday, and I’ve been sitting all morning in a café that has reliable wireless internet in order to catch up on all these blog posts. Alex went to class this morning and joined me here for lunch before he has to return to class in the afternoon. When he finishes around 3pm, we’ll go to a beach for swimming! More news later…

Enjoying a luxurious breakfast with our friends August and Ramon

The fig trees that make the fig breeze

Walking around Cunda

Here are a few photos of a nice walk we took around Cunda in the hot, hot sun.

The Road to Cunda

Finally, Alex and I would see each other in Turkey! For the past three weeks, he has been studying at the Ottoman Language summer program on Cunda Island, which is near the coast of Ayvalık in the Aegean Sea. Both places are popular vacation destinations for Turkish people. This would be a long day of traveling—here goes:

·                                              o   7:00am shuttle service from Sabancı to Kadıköy 

o   By 7:15am the shuttle had not appeared, to the consternation of several waiting would-be passengers. One man knew who to talk to and the shuttle people called taxis to take us to Kadıköy, but they sent 2 taxis for 10 people. I was selfish and got in the taxi to go; at least I heard them say they would order another taxi for the two people left behind.

o   Thanks to the hell-bent speed of the taxi driver (I had to close my eyes), we got there in plenty of time. He didn’t really know the exact route to take, but the other two people could give him directions!

o   8:15am shuttle to the Dudullu bus station (no big deal)

o   At the bus station, I asked one of the attendants when the bus to Ayvalık would arrive, and he told me to sit and wait. OK, I waited, and around 9:40 I asked again, but there still was no bus. Finally, he told me to talk to the man at the ticket counter (whom I should have gone to directly!), and because I totally could not understand what he said, he took my ticket, crossed out 9:45am and wrote 10:45am. I stupidly asked “why?” but, of course, I could not understand the reason either. Fine then, I got tea and a snack and waited for the bus some more.

o   Ah, the bus to Ayvalık arrives—happy happy joy joy! I hand over my bag, find my seat, and as the bus fills up, it turns out that someone else has the same seat assignment as I do! Ugh. I must be looking truly pathetic at this point because the bus driver escorts me over to the ticket counter and tells them to fix my seat number. They do, and I am finally on the bus and ready for the next seven hours to Ayvalık! :D 

On the bus, the elderly lady sitting next to me was in the mood to talk; Her name was Şöhret, and her family had dispersed to Australia, Poland, and the U.S., so she seemed pretty lonely. She was on her way to a summer house near Ayvalık. Excepting the “nap” I took, we (I mean she) talked for the whole trip. It was excellent practice for my Turkish, and she patiently corrected me a few times. We talked about family, work, travel, vacations, and painting for fun (and probably many other topics that I didn’t fully understand…)

One interesting part of the journey was the bus ferry across the Mamara Sea. These are immense ferries that load up with intercity busses and private cars. While crossing, passengers can get off the bus and walk around the ferry. I took a couple photos then (see below.)

Hours later, after Şöhret’s stop, I still had another half hour to go. There were tantalizing glimpses of the sea as we approached. I painstakingly texted Alex that the bus was getting close, and he asked me to get a taxi or a dolmuş (a shared mini-bus) to meet him on the waterfront at Ayvalık. I got the taxi and completely mangled my Turkish so that he drove toward the causeway for Cunda, when what I meant was to go to the pier for Cunda on the mainland. I managed to stop him and try to explain, and when he understood the problem, he was mostly patient with me, and in the end he didn’t charge me the whole cost for the out of the way trip. All’s well that ends well, because there was Alex waiting for me! 

Cheap Phones and Flirty Waiters

Of course, Keri and I knew that we needed to get phones, but we wanted the simplest, cheapest ones possible. I also needed to buy bus tickets to visit Alex at Cunda, where he is studying now. We took the shuttle service from Sabancı University to Kadıköy and did some comparison shopping. Generally, electronics are more expensive than in the U.S., but I think we did pretty well. To use the type of phone I got, I need to buy minutes rather than a contract. Text messages are cheaper than talking, but the phone is old enough that it doesn’t have a QWERTY keyboard, I have to tap through all the letters to get something close to what I want to text. Fresh from our success getting the oldest cell phones on the planet, we looked into various ferries we could take across the Bosphorus and still make it back in time for the return shuttle service to Sabancı. We took the ferry to Beşiktaş (only 15 minutes to Europe!) and on the trip over, I discovered that my “new” phone was locked, which meant that I would have to go back to the shop to get that taken care of. In Beşiktaş, we found a café to have lunch. There we encountered the common species known as the flirty waiter. Let’s just say that his attention was slightly ridiculous, and did not result in a better tip at all. Good thing the food was delicious—we enjoyed mevsim salata, cheese and spinach gözleme, and ayran. Then we had just enough time to catch the return ferry to Kadıköy; I went back to the shop and Keri went in search of bakery bread to bring to Tolga and Funda. At the shop, when I tried to explain the problem, the owner joked in Turkish, “Did you get this phone here?”, but I didn’t get that it was a joke at first, I was a little stressed about time for that. He then told me to wait five minutes and took the phone to the back room. At that point, I had 20 minutes before the shuttle left, so I had to make myself believe that it would all work out (rather than split a gasket). Ten minutes later, another guy came out—really looking like they kept him in the basement to hack locked phones—and gave me the phone. I asked if it worked and he said yes, so I headed over to the shuttle stop as fast as I could. Then Keri came with the Ramazan pidesi and all was well--back in time to make yummy mercimek köftesi!