October 24, 2010
Somewhere near Sumela Monastery outside of Trabzon. Fun but fruitless fishing session in the AM. Shored up reservation for Istanbul Hotel and Pensione in Vienna.
We are probably the only people at this very large handsome inn in very quiet village. They have turned off the heat and hot water for the season, which did give us some bargaining power. Got price down from 140 TL to 70. Intended to sleep In Trabzon (nufus: 600,000) but spent an hour driving around trying to find the center of town. There are no street signs in Turkey except for the tiniest alleys. Verbal directions usually include various contradictory suggestions and amazingly kooky estimations of distances.
After many frustrating forays, Jill decided to abandon the Trabzon plan. We stopped at what looked like a restaurant, and walked in to find a butcher shop. Smelling grilled meat from the backyard we headed back there and noted some tables and grills. Nobody paid much attention to us as we moseyed about trying to suss things out. No menus anywhere. We were hungry and clueless so we attempted to leave and find something less intimidating. On the way out people started giving us an extensive explanation of the scenario in rapid fire Turkish. Jill and the kids went next door to the market. I finally figured things out with a lot of sign language. Go to the meat counter tell the guy how many koftas (meat patties) you want, he weighs them and then they grill them for you tableside. Sinfully good. Even Ben was happy.
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