Batumi and Turkey

So much has happened since I last wrote. I went to Batumi for an overnight, I had no school for two days because the government declared snow days, I went to Trabzon, Turkey and I helped fix the water pipes that bring water to our house.

On Saturday the 4^th, I woke up early to catch the marshutka to Batumi. At that time I didn’t know if I would be coming home that night or not. It depended what I found to do in Batumi. It was a quick one-hour ride. The weather was cold but sunny and that made all the difference. I had been to Batumi briefly on an excursion with other English Teachers but it didn’t leave much time to see anything. So here I was again in Batumi and determined to see what I could. While Kenneth and I were walking around we stumbled upon the tourist info box. They gave us a map and circled all the things we must see. They were extremely helpful. We walked next to the beach that was covered in snow. We wandered through the city and saw the churches, the mosque, the statue of Medea holding the Golden Fleece, the new Piazza that is modeled after an Italian square, we went to the “Zoo”, we ate at the Chinese restaurant next to the fountain show, we walked, a lot. It was eventually too late to take the marshutka directly back to our village so we found a place to stay and haggled the price down from 70GEL to 50GEL. I was quite proud of that, and I did it in Georgian.

Beach in Batumi

Roman Columns

Colorful Batumi

Medea holding the Golden Fleece

Piazza tower

Eagle at the Zoo

Guinea pigs in a Zoo(who would have thought)

Lemur!

Chinese Restaurant

Art on the boardwalk at Sunset

The next morning we got up and made our way to Gonio Fortress. It was founded in the 3^rd Century BC and the Byzantines and the Ottomans used the current fort. St. Matthias is also buried there(or so they say). He was in Georgia around the time he died so it is possible. The Fort was pretty cool, very old but I could definitely see how it would be much nicer looking in the summer when everything is in full bloom. A little bit of history and some cool artifacts were in the museum part of the fort. It made for a nice trip. From there we went back to Batumi, wandered around a bit, ate some delicious food at a random restaurant that we found and then went to the bus station to head home. It had been a nice weekend trip but it was good to be going home. We also started looking at possibly going to Turkey in the near future but didn’t know if it would be a viable option or not.

St. Matthias's Grave

Walls of the fortress

 Monday was just a normal funday Monday. School, kids and cool weather. After school I went to English club at Kenneth’s school and the idea was to teach them the cha cha slide. We taught them all of the vocabulary for the song but when it came down to it we had some technical difficulties, so we couldn’t play the song. We promised the kids we would do it next week. On Tuesday I did nothing except laundry. The weather was pretty windy and I knew we could expect some bad weather the next day or so. Wednesday was the day that changed my weekend. I was at school just getting started with second period and the bell rang. I thought that was weird but it had rung randomly earlier in the day so I ignored it. A few minutes later the Russian teacher comes in and says that school has been cancelled for today and we don’t have to come back to school until Monday. It had started to snow outside but I hadn’t given it much thought, as it didn’t seem too different from usual. I called Kenneth and we talked about the fact that we should leave for Turkey right now. I really want to visit Cappodocia and we had talked about it but were going to wait to do it until later when we had a long weekend. Well here was our long weekend but we were not ready to go. After much deliberation we decided not to go to Cappodocia. But we still wanted to get out of the village. So instead we decided that if the weather looked fair on Thursday morning we would go to Trabzon, Turkey. Kenneth looked online and saw that there would be a soccer match, and there was a cool monastery nearby that was built into the cliffs. Something cultural and something historical, sounds like a plan to me.  We made it to Batumi right at 11AM, caught a bus to Trabzon and headed on our way. The border crossing was pretty chill and we still had valid visas from when we made our little trip into Istanbul from the airport there. Unfortunately it seemed that we were on the slowest bus ever. From the border it is only supposed to take three hours. It took 6 for us. We stopped at every small town along the way and drove really slowly. It was frustrating because I was getting hungry but we never stopped long enough to get any food just long enough to load or unload passengers. I had a few snacks but those didn’t last very long on the trip. We finally made it to Trabzon and got dropped off near the main square. I had the address of the Tourist info office written down so that was going to be our first stop. We did make it the office but it was closed. We went into the hotel next door and asked if they knew when it would open. They said the manager of the Tourist Office had died and everyone was at the funeral, it might open later today but definitely tomorrow. Great, I thought. Here we are in a new city with no idea on where we actually are or where anything else is.

From there we walked to a kebab place that we had seen. It was really good but maybe just because I was really hungry at that point. While sitting in the place I saw a sign that pointed to a church. I thought it was weird that there was a church in Turkey (for those who don’t know Turkey is a Muslim country) so I suggested we make that out next stop. We walked down the road and rang the bell to get into the church. It was really beautiful. Capuchin monks who had been forced out of Russia and Georgia built this church, and several others in Turkey but only a few of them are currently still used as churches. Many are mosques or museums.

Entrance to the church

Inside the church

 

Baptism Font

We wandered around some more and then headed back to the main square to start looking for accommodation. We figured it would be more expensive right on the square so we walked down one of the side streets to inquire about prices. We arrived at Otel Evim and the owner/receptionist gave us a slight discount for two nights. He also knew a bit of English and could answer our questions about the town. He also told us that he would try to find us tickets to the soccer match the next night and we could go with him. He suggested we walk down on of the main streets just off of the square for something to do. We wandered around, had some tea (one of those must do things in Turkey) stumbled across the bazaar that was closing down and eventually called it a night. There is a two hour time difference between Georgia and Turkey so even though going to bed at 8:30 PM sounds ridiculous it had already been a long day and our sleep was well earned.

Atatürk in Atatürk Square

Symbol for Trabzon Spor FC(Soccer Team)

The Black Sea. She was a bit feisty today.

Aya Sofia

Friday’s plan was to get up early and take a bus to the monastery about 30KM from Trabzon. We talked to the owner’s dad who takes the late night early morning shift at the front desk and he called a company to see if anyone would be going. Unfortunately there had been big snow in that area and no one was going anywhere. We even walked to different bus companies to ask just to make sure that it wasn’t just the one company not going. Nope. No one was going. Just one more thing to add to the list of things that weren’t going according to plan. After that we went to the Tourist Office, which was open today, and got our map and some suggestions of things to see in the city. Good thing too because otherwise we would have just been wandering around. After realizing that we weren’t going to the Monastery we decided to go to Aya Sofia. It was a church turned monastery, later turned into a museum. The art on the walls was mostly gone but in certain places the frescoes were still very visible. In other places it looked like the pictures had been scratched away, which is possible. I imagine it must have been beautiful in it’s heyday. 

Inside Aya Sofia Museum

From the Aya Sofia we walked back to the main square. We passed the soccer stadium, several mosques, several statues of Atatürk and lots of little shops selling anything and everything you can imagine. It was quite a hike but the weather was nice and we could do what we wanted. We grabbed some food and then headed out on our next adventure to Boztepe. This is the overview point of the city. There was snow up there, it was cold and windy but the view was pretty, really worth the trip up there. While we were there we also sat and had some tea (yep more tea). Turkish style tea is served in glass cups and you put a sugar cube into about 6 oz of tea. So it ends up very sweet. It’s all part of the experience.

View from Boztepe

 

 We spent some time just sitting and enjoying the view and getting warmed up before heading back out again. We decided we would walk down because again the weather was nice and why waste the money on a ride. We found a set of stairs and wandered through some neighborhoods on our way down. The path was fairly steep in some places and I couldn’t imagine having to walk that everyday. We were a bit turned around once we got back down but we eventually got our bearings to head back to the hotel to change, charge my camera batteries and our batteries for a bit then head out with the owner from the hotel to the Soccer match.

This was an experience. We took a bus to the stadium and thousands of people were milling about. We were waiting for his friends who had the tickets for us. It was only going to cost us 10 lira to go to the game. It would have been 50 if we got them from the ticket booth. After going through two security check points we made it into the stadium and found our seats. We couldn’t have asked for anything better. We were in the middle of the fan zone. As Kenneth pointed out later this town is a crazy about their soccer as most universities in the south are about their football. And as I learned at the game you never can get away from home. Just before the teams came out of the tunnel they played the Car Chant. You heard me correctly; the song that makes an FSU sporting event was played in Trabzon, Turkey. They didn’t do the chop but they did raise their arms up and down so it looked a bit like the chop. Our host, Ali(we finally learned his name just before going into the stadium) was so surprised that we knew the song. We had to explain that is was from our university. Us chopping along with the rest of the fans became part of the story he continued to repeat through the night. 

They sang different songs and chanted the whole game. They jumped up and down, they swayed back and forth and it was amazing. I have also learned that The Wave is for the weak. True fans start a chant in one section and send it around the stadium with each section filling in a different part. One interesting thing about the game was that the crowd was probably divided 20/80 women and men. However most of those women sat in the covered section of the stadium, so when the chant made it to their area the tone was much higher. It was really interesting. That game was probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time at a sporting event. Best 3 dollars I’ve ever spent. Trabzon Spor won the match 4-1. 

Cheer leaders of a different sort(It was below freezing)

 After the game we went with Ali to his friend’s house and we watched the replay, talked about the game. I already love soccer but being able to talk about something even with a language barrier makes me love it even more. Another friend, Salim, who spoke much more English than Ali, showed up a little bit later so the conversations were a bit more fluid. We ate some delicious food that his friend said would make us want to eat our fingers. Evidently eating fingers is the Turkish equivalent of something being finger-licking good. We got nice long laugh out of that one for quite a while.

From Left to right: Ali, Salim, Kenneth, Me and Ali's Friend

 We eventually left his friend’s place and went back to the hotel. Ali and Salim were going to go to their other friend’s bar and asked if we were tired or wanted to come too. We went. The bar had a great view of the city and the sea, which I think must be even better in the daylight. The owner was very funny. There were a few other people there as well. One of them was a girl who had spent a year on a study abroad in Lafayette, Louisiana. After a long day and night we went said goodbye to our new friends and went back to the hotel to sleep.

Saturday we tried to go to the monastery again, but the roads were still impassable because of the snow. It looks like we will have to come back when it is warmer if we want to go there. Instead we wandered towards the old city, walked through the bazaar when it was working in full force. We did some small shopping. While Kenneth was in one shop trying on jeans the shop owner insisted on getting me tea. I don’t know exactly where the tea comes from but you can see men walking around with tea on trays and delivering it to different shops. It was very nice to sit there and sip on tea. Almost nobody in the bazaar speaks English but they don’t seem to care that you don’t speak Turkish; they will just keep talking like you understand. We killed a lot of time and we went to the shopping mall too and finally took a 9PM bus to Batumi. We arrived in Batumi around 3AM Georgia time. We got some food at a 24 hour restaurant then went to the bus station. The first marshutka showed up around 6 but wasn’t going to leave until 7. We got in, slept a little bit until he left. From Supsa we walked back to our houses. I slept for a while and then got up to eat some food. I also went to bed early that night because I had school the next day. It was an amazing weekend. Nothing went the way we thought it should but everything turned out perfectly.

Monday was again pretty average. I can’t say much about school. Four lessons and done. Went to Kenneth’s school and taught English Club the Cha-Cha Slide. We got our technical issues figured out and I think the kids really enjoyed it. Some of them were a bit embarrassed about dancing in front of each other but that’s part of being 15 and 16 years old. I love doing that to them.

Today was good. I woke up late, I did laundry, I cleaned my room, and I wrote, I read a book outside in the sunshine and I drew pictures. It was a great day to be home and outside. The weather was practically perfect. After Aniko came home we went on another small excursion. This time just to the backyard to readjust some pipes that had moved during the last snow and freeze. It wasn’t too exciting and I spent most of my time standing next to the house and turning the pump on and off a lot of times until the water started to flow. But good news is the water is fully working again. Yay. Let’s just hope we don’t have to fix it again any time soon.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you all and thank you for your support and prayers during this journey.