So they say it's my birthday and I thought to myself 'This calls for an overdue blog post'.
First off, thank you so much to everyone who has been sending me letters, cards, and packages! My room is becoming cluttered with all the love!

We had a birthday celebration this afternoon in my Turkish class-- cake, candles, the works. The weather outside is spectacular, short-sleeve, chaco weather! On my home to eat some of my favorite mercimek çorba (lentil soup). Then I'll head out to celebrate with my friends!

This past weekend I traveled with my fellow adventurers, Riley and Sev, to Amasra. It was about a 5 hour bus ride to the town of Bartın, where we caught a dolmuş to the town of Amasra, a small town with two harbors on the Black Sea (Karadeniz). I didn't sleep at all on the bus because I was so preoccupied by the scenery-- rolling green hills to snow-covered pine trees as we crossed over a pass, logging roads, and muddy creeks. We had the name and telephone number of a pensiyon (bed-n-breakfast style accomodation), called when we arrived, and ended up with a room overlooking the Black Sea. The pensiyon itself was located in the Amasra kale, surrounded by 3000-year-old crumbling Roman walls. I woke up just as the sun was rising, and wandered out onto our balcony, wrapped in a big blanket, camera and journal in hand, and soaked up the early morning gazing out at the Karadeniz. We did quite a bit of wandering around the city, saw countless stray dogs and cats compared to the number I run into in Ankara, bartered with shop keepers selling wooden handcrafts, and walked out on a crowded boardwalk to get a better view of the town. We met a woman with 8 chubby puppies and she saw us eyeing them, so she invited us into her front yard to sit and hold the darlings. We found out how small the town really was when we ran into the same woman with her friends at a cafe we had sat down to eat at. I had read about a few islands that you can get to from Amasra, one we could see from our pensiyon, but only birds seemed to hang out there. We ended up finding the bridge to the other island and climbed up to the top of a ridge, past wild flowers and even over a few boulders, where we watched the sun set, and listened to akşam ezan (the evening call to prayer) coming from the local mosque. The words echoed through the valley. From the top of the ridge I could see all of Amasra, the surrounding mountain valley, and the Black Sea stretching as far as the eyes can see into the horizon. If this would have been my only experience in Amasra, I would have left simply stunned and speechless.

Since you probably don't know, my previous weekend excursions earlier this month include a day-trip to Eskişehir, a visit to the Ankara Zoo, and the Roman Baths in Ankara. We took the hızla tren (fast train) to Eşkişehir and spent the afternoon with Riley's host sister's cousin, a student at one of the two universities in Eskişehir. It poured most of the day, but the visit was worth it just to gain a different perspective of another area of Turkey. A canal runs right through the city center, colorful mozaics dot the walkways, and there are even a set of lightrails. The zoo in Ankara cost 2.50 lira to get in (insanely cheap by American standards). We weren't expecting to see cages of dogs at the zoo. The dogs looked pretty miserable. I stood a few feet away from the dirtiest and biggest camel I have ever seen. I could have touched him and he could have spit on me. The Roman Baths are in a gated off plot of land near a busy intersection in the historical district of Ankara called Ulus. We spend the afternoon wandering around all of these ancient stone pillars and blocks dating back to the Roman and Greek empires.

I hope this will suffice for a post. İyi akşamlar! Görüsürüz!