Back in Samsun

Back in Samsun, it feels like the same whenever I come to Samsun. Life is slow, nice here, no haste, the day feels like 48 hours. Had breakfast with my family, my sister is also here, a complete family gathering.

(From left to right, Juan Pablo from Spain, Natalia from Ukraine & Raina from Morocco)

Also a surprise was waiting for me here. Before coming here I was hoping to see my beloved friends Esra & Özden. Not only I saw them, but also Murat was here for his military service! It is such a coincidence that he was assigned to Samsun. This is like a crossroads where people meet. The other thing is that he works very close to where I stay in Istanbul but we never had the chance to meet, and here we are in Istanbul..

So the old friends gathered back together; Esra, Özden, Murat, Hasan (a friend of Murat's) & Nur (my sister). We went to the beach, to Hurol, the most popular cafe in the beach, as we allways do whenever I come to Samsun & spent a fantastic day together with lots of laughter.



Being close to the water is so good. As the city is built up on hills & slopes, every downhill takes you to the sea, and many houses has a seaview to some extend. Ours has a nice sea view too, being at the top of a slope.

Also whenever you feel like getting some fresh air, or walking, jogging you can go down the sea in 10-15 mins from any point in Samsun. We are so lucky to have that, but as Murat says people here seem to be ignoring the fact that we have that beauty, because if it was anywhere else in the world they would have built hotels and houses by the sea coast & the coastline houses would have worth a fortune & they would have been all glass windowed, etc. I don't see eye to eye with him on this one. Yes, the coastline could be in a better shape and more care could be given, but if you consider it is the whole Black Sea region has that beauty not just Samsun, then it applies for the whole region. Well, Samsun is the biggest and most developed city of the Black Sea region, and we may not be utilizing the beauties as much as we could, we still preserve the nature by not changing it.

One of the best spots of Samsun is Amisos (Amisos is the ancient name of Samsun). We went up there with the cable car climbing up the hills. They built a nice restaurant on the top of the hill with great view. We enjoyed our meals & the sea, it was a bit windy though.

It was soon time for our friend to go back to military house so we said goodbye to them & went to Özden's flat to have some tea..