Turkish Bunnies
Amasra was amazing! Beautiful scenery, wonderful food, great atmosphere. I will blog on the natural beauty and food later. This is the first of three posts, and I spologize for its length. It concerns midnight visitors (not the fun type) and woodland creatures, unfortunately in combination. The trip started out well, the five hour bus ride was scenic. We stopped at a fish restaurant where we drank and ate until the bus rode a little lower.
After lunch there was some left over dessert, sesame halva, super delicious. We had it wrapped to go and took it with us. After we got to our hotel, took in the view, stashed our stuff in the room, halva included, we took a walk. I mean, how could we not?
When we got back ,I noticed the halva, which had been on the dresser seemed as if it had been nibbled on. Like a good country girl I took notice, absently, and put the rest of the halva in the covered trashcan. But by then it was too late.
After dinner and live music we came back to the room at about 12 am. My fiance’s mother was staying in my room because they were concerned about security (I’ve seen bathroom stall doors with better locks). She is a notoriously light sleeper, and also has trouble falling asleep, I gave her the full bed and I was sleeping on the twin. Well, about 4:30 in the morning I wake up because something is scratching my head, groggily I reach up to scratch it, and I realize something is there, I sit straight up and fling whatever it is towards the bathroom.
It was a mouse, I saw the Mofo scamper to a corner. So it is the ass crack of dawn, and I am totally skeeved, and freaked out. IWhen I got up to use the bathroom, I can hear it scuttling around. But I don’t want to wake Susan because I know she will never get back to sleep and we had a full day of sightseeing ahead of us. So I get on my bed and my eyes are practically bugging out of my head. Then I hear a sound, I see another mouse climb up the heating pipe from under the floor boards. Shit. Then I see another do the same thing. God Damn, how many can there be?
By this point I am thinking, well, I don’t want to wake Susan, how weird would it be to ask my fiance’s dad, Ali, if I could sleep on the second bed in his room. Too weird I decided. So there I am, watching these grey blurs steak across the floor of my room, listening to their claws on the floor, and then…a vibration. That fucker was trying to climb my bed again. So I spent a good time of the next hour slapping my shoe on the floor next to my bed. Finally I conked out again, but not without fear, when I awoke the next morning I was stiff from being curled in the fetal position.
The next morning I told Susan, and she was appalled, though at first she thought it was good, until I pantomimed a mouse (I don’t know the Turkish word for mouse, and she didn’t know the English). They were both infuriated, and complained to the manager, asked me why I didn’t wake them up (I didn’t think it would have been constructive.) We were traveling with a large group of people, and at breakfast Ali told them about the incident. One woman asked, did you already tell her it was a mouse? He said, “Of course” (as if I didn’t know). That is too bad, she says, you could have told her they were Turkish bunnies, different than American bunnies.
So as we were leaving the owners gave me a gift. It is a wooden bowl, hand crafted, the Amasra area is know for this type of decorative item.
Susan said I could use it for a sugar bowl, but I thought maybe it would fit a Turkish bunny.
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And that is where the first meal was, a a restaurant called Çeşm-i Cihan. In Amasra it is redundant to call a restaurant a “Fish Restaurant.” Because that is what they served. Seafood, and drinks. No menus. You are given a choice between two different fish as a entree. Salad comes with the meal. What I love about Turkish salads is that they often come with herbs in them, which make they a little zingy. This salad was particularly good and included, pickled beets, green onions, green garlic, lettuce, carrots, radishes, onions (soaked to get the bite out) dill, mint, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage.
An appetizer, shrimp casserole. Super delicious, word to the wise, if you mispronounce shrimp in Turkish it easily sounds like drunk. Just an FYI, not that I did that repeatedly.
Far From The Sticks 