April 12-13 Ankara to Amasra

Back from Çatalhöyük, Gail found she was out of reading material. That's her in the checkout queue at the mall, a short taxi ride towards the bus station. They had a wide but peculiar selection in the English section, but a good shelf of Turkish subjects and fiction there. We actually broke down and had lunch at some American chain, but the ambiance still managed to be Turkish. (Inset - we learned the Turkish for 'Girl' at the bookstore.) The next day, 13th April, we bid farewell to our Ankara home, the hotel with the 'Turkish Lounge', which we admired but never used, the 'Vitamin Bar', apparently fresh fruit and vegetable concoctions designed to quench the thirst of malnourished abstainers and never used by anyone (although a common feature of hotel lobbies and restaurants), and the incredibly helpful staff who stored our baggage during our junket to Konya, booked hotels in Konya, Amasra, and Istanbul, buses, taxi's and even found us a place to do laundry (3-star 5- would have had their own – and cost twice as much). On our way to the Black Sea: snow. Turkish landscape: tall cliffs, pines, snow, mosque, road, bald bus driver in mirror. On the mini bus from Bartin to Amasra. I'd always figured the red-heads in Turkey were out of a bottle, partly because those I could see were in jeans, not scarves and long coats, but this schoolboy proved me wrong (I think). That's our lugage on the floor. Our first glimpse of Amasra – it was love at first sight, and it just got better. More later.