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travel

The Black Sea: Çakraz & Amasra

September 8, 2013

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Friday, August 30 was Victory Day in Turkey, and we had the day off of school. We decided to take advantage of the long weekend and planned a trip north to the Black Sea.

Five of us rented a car and David braved driving in Turkey. We left around 6 am to avoid as much traffic as possible, and it worked really well. Once we got out of the city it was smooth sailing. The drive was absolutely beautiful with mountains and trees. It took us about four and a half hours to get there.

Our friend helped us make hostel reservations. We called several places, but hardly anyone spoke English and if they did, it was super limited. (Surprisingly, we were asked several times if we spoke German.) We ended up staying at Deniz Motel, which was right on the beach!

Çakraz is a tiny town nestled in a cove between two bluffs. Most of the action is on the “brickwalk” area by the sea. There are several hotels and restaurants and a few bakkals. I don’t think we ran into any English-speaking tourists, though there were a lot of Turks on vacation. It was much more a vacation spot than a tourist spot. We loved relaxing in such a chill atmosphere! Our hostel even had lounge chairs for us to use on the beach.

There were several gözleme stands by the restaurants. Gözleme is kind of a cross between a crepe and a calzone. There’s different fillings you can order. We love the potato kind. The beef ones are also good – they have finely ground meat with spices and onion. Our favorite is the honey and walnut gözleme. The gözleme only cost 2,50TL and we ordered about 12 between the five of us the first afternoon.

After some beach time on Friday, we drove twenty minutes over to Amasra to meet up with some friends who had also traveled to the Black Sea for the weekend. We stopped just outside of Amasra for some pictures:

How’s this for the view next to the parking lot?

Our friend who made our hostel reservations recommended that we eat at Canlı Balık, a popular fish restaurant in Amasra.

There were 12 of us. We had a super long table right next to the sea.

The Black Sea region gets a lot of rain and is well known for its produce. This salad was as tasty as it was beautiful!

Our table ordered several plates of fish. It was all fried and included hamsi and at least one other type of fish I didn’t get the name of. Hamsi is apparently known as the European anchovy. I avoided the bones and heads, but a several people ate the little fish whole!

We walked around Amasra for a bit aftewards. Amasra was a hopping little town with plenty of shops, restaurants, and touristy things. They had some really yummy street food – we got mussels, ice cream, and fried spiraled potatoes on a stick. We’re glad we got to check it out and say hello to our friends:

Back in Çakraz the next morning, we went on a little hike.

We started on the left of our hostel and climbed around on the rocky bluff.

Then we walked through the town to get to the top of the bluff on the right.

That night we ate at the restaurant connected to Özmenler Otel. The food and service was even better than at Canlı Balık. Plus, the waiter spoke some English. We ate family style and ordered some delicious meze – calamari, eggplant with a garlic yogurt sauce, a vegetable dish, and a cheese plate. We ordered hamsi again and another fish they recommended. This time, the fish was not fried and it was so good. They also gave us free fish eggrolls and a beautiful fruit plate. The entire meal was less than 35TL (around $17 USD) a person!

Also that evening, we bought some paper lanterns from a street vendor and set them off over the water.

After the Turkish breakfast provided by our hostel, we drove back to Ankara on Sunday. We loved the Black Sea!

Staying In Touch While You’re Overseas: Calling & Texting

August 26, 2013

Leah

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Whether you are living overseas, studying abroad, or traveling for an extended period of time, it’s important to stay in touch with family and friends back home. The internet and our many electronic gadgets have made communication amazingly easy compared to how it was even just a few years ago.

David and I spend about 10 months out of the year teaching in Turkey and the other 2 in the States. Apart from Facebook, email, and our blog, Google Voice is one of our favorite resources for keeping in touch with our family and friends back home.

Calling and Texting: Google Voice and Talkatone

If you have an iPod (or any iOS or Android device) and an internet connection, your iPod can be used as a cell phone for calling and texting:

1. Create a Gmail account if you don’t already have one.
2. Set up Google Voice. I did this on my computer, but you can probably do it through the app. (I got to choose the area code of my Google Voice number!) Note: I believe this must be done in the States before you travel.
3. Install the free Google Voice app on your iPod.
4. Install the free Talkatone app on your iPod. During the set up, you’ll link it to your Google Voice account.

And that’s it! Your Google Voice number + the Talkatone app + Wi–Fi = an iPod that can call and text for FREE! (Note: You will want to use headphones if you are in public. Otherwise, you’ll be walking around on speakerphone.)

I use Talkatone on my Barnes and Noble Nook to text. (I can also make calls with the Nook, but I prefer to use my computer for calls.) David has a 5th generation iPod and often times, we’ll make our calls from that.

Google does have international calling rates, but since we set our Google Voice numbers as U.S. numbers, we can call any U.S. number (or Canada) for FREE!

We can also send and receive calls on our computers when we have our Gmail email accounts open:

What is also great about Google Voice is that it allows you to set up call forwarding. When we were home over a break, we purchased a T-Mobile prepaid phone. We can only use that phone and number when we are in the States. However, we give everyone our Google Voice number because we set it up to forward both calls and texts to our T-Mobile phone. When we travel back to Turkey, we change the Google Voice settings so calls and texts do not forward and we don’t get charged by T-Mobile. (The only “problem” with this is when we call or text back, it shows our T-Mobile number rather than the Google Voice number.)

Do you use Google Voice or another free calling/texting service?

The Atatürk Mausoleum in Ankara

May 16, 2013

Leah

Spring Break Part 3: Back in Amsterdam

April 13, 2013

Leah

Spring Break Part 2: Bruges

April 9, 2013

Leah

Spring Break Part 1: Amsterdam

April 6, 2013

Leah

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Our school’s spring break was the last week in March. David, Daniel, and I traveled with 4 of our friends to the Netherlands and Belgium. We flew into Amsterdam Saturday night and spent 2 days there.

I was super impressed with how modern and clean Amsterdam was in comparison to Ankara. Europe is so efficient! When we looked up the weather, we saw it was going to be cold. We had no idea it was going to be freezing. I wore tights under my jeans, double layered socks, had a scarf, hat, and gloves, and was still cold most of the time! We road the tram a lot to escape the cold.

We shared a 9-person room with a private bathroom at Hotel Van Gogh. The hostel was very modern and provided clean sheets and towels every day. They had a fantastic €5 buffet breakfast. Some of the desk workers were rude, but we would recommend staying there because of the amenities and location.

We spent our first full day walking around and checking out shops. Holland is known for its cheese, and we sampled a lot.

We never really ate “traditional” Flemish food, aside from a croquette appetizer at one restaurant. However, we thoroughly enjoyed the Mexican, Thai, Italian, and English food! Another place to note was Bagels and Beans. I ordered their avocado, tomato, and lettus bagel sandwich. Their honey and walnut cream cheese rocked my world. I told my friends I wanted an ice cream cone filled with that cream cheese it was so good. (I also loved their branding – just take a look at their menu!)

We also visited the Van Gogh Museum, which was temporarily in the Hermitage. No pictures were allowed in the exhibit, but we saw many of his most famous works including Sunflowers and Almond Branches in Bloom.

Amsterdam has bikes, bikes, and more bikes! David read there is roughly an average of 1.5 bicycles per person in Amsterdam. We didn’t rent any because it was so cold, but would have liked to. I thought for certain I’d get hit by one, but luckily most of them had bells and let you know they were coming.

One of my favorite things we saw was the Anne Frank House. This was the annex in her father’s business building where they hid for 2 years. I was surprised how large it was – I had always imagined it as a small, cramped couple of rooms. I was also surprised it was in a row of buildings right beside a canal. It was a moving experience to walk through the house and experience a piece of history.

Before we started traveling, I purchased The Fault In Our Stars by John Greene. I heard good reviews about the book and several of our students read it this semester. I had no idea that part of the story took place in Amsterdam! It was really cool to read the part about the characters visiting the Anne Frank House after having seen it myself.

The canals were so picturesque:

The architecture was beautiful, too. This is Amsterdam’s Grand Central Station:

I was super disappointed the weather was so cold, because I was hoping to see the tulip fields and the windmills. I doubted the fields were in bloom, and it was really too cold to take the day trip outside the city. We did visit one windmill within the city:

And I did see a few tulips in the tulip market:

And the canals were especially beautiful at night:

After a few days in Amsterdam, we took a train to Bruges, Belgium. More to come on that soon!