Day 1 - Tekirdağ
Our first day of biking. We set up our bikes in front of Yavuz's apartment. Unpacking them was reuniting with something familiar in an unfamiliar place.
Yavuz lives near Kadıköy, a suburb on the eastern side of Istanbul. Riding from there through the city would have been as dangerous as it would have been time consuming. We biked to the ferry - which was only 13km but took an hour. We then took a boat to Bakırköy and rode west. Although the first 30 km were still some pretty intense city riding along the side of the road, once we left the metropolitan area we had it all to ourselves, with the sea peering at us every time we climbed a hill. We finished the day with 140km.
I also got to use some Turkish - our rather all of it each time, just to exhaust my vocabulary. People were interested in the bikes and often asked whenever we stopped where we are from and where we are going. It doesn't matter to them that we don't really speak Turkish, they'll still talk at us - mostly about things to see and do in various parts of the country.
Our host in Tekirdağ was Derya. An enthusiastic agricultural engineer PhD candidate who welcomed us at the sea side with her roommate and some friends. We had some tea and some more balık ekmek while she explained the Turkish meat industry to us (she currently works as a cattle inspector). She is also getting married in two weeks in order to move in with her fiancé in Istanbul.
We learned a lot from her and her perspective on Turkey. There was recently a coal mine disaster a little bit south of where we are in a town called Soma (not on our route). Talk of this so far has triggered a fair amount of ire against the president for being corrupt. Although we haven't gotten a very clear idea of what people believe is the source of this corruption and what the mine has to do with it. Although Derya told us a joke that Turkey should threaten to build a nuclear reactor, with their safety record it would cause all of their neighbors to give them free energy.
One of her friends was very excited to meet us but couldn't speak English. Instead we received a nice lesson in Turkish with a dash of English. Often, people will say something to us that we don't understand. When we say that we didn't understand they just repeat the same sentence, but louder. It helps when someone reformulates it and uses simpler words.
Arrival in Tekirdağ
Eating some balık ekmek on the boardwalk
Departure from Istanbul (traffic not shown)
Yavuz lives near Kadıköy, a suburb on the eastern side of Istanbul. Riding from there through the city would have been as dangerous as it would have been time consuming. We biked to the ferry - which was only 13km but took an hour. We then took a boat to Bakırköy and rode west. Although the first 30 km were still some pretty intense city riding along the side of the road, once we left the metropolitan area we had it all to ourselves, with the sea peering at us every time we climbed a hill. We finished the day with 140km.
I also got to use some Turkish - our rather all of it each time, just to exhaust my vocabulary. People were interested in the bikes and often asked whenever we stopped where we are from and where we are going. It doesn't matter to them that we don't really speak Turkish, they'll still talk at us - mostly about things to see and do in various parts of the country.
Our host in Tekirdağ was Derya. An enthusiastic agricultural engineer PhD candidate who welcomed us at the sea side with her roommate and some friends. We had some tea and some more balık ekmek while she explained the Turkish meat industry to us (she currently works as a cattle inspector). She is also getting married in two weeks in order to move in with her fiancé in Istanbul.
We learned a lot from her and her perspective on Turkey. There was recently a coal mine disaster a little bit south of where we are in a town called Soma (not on our route). Talk of this so far has triggered a fair amount of ire against the president for being corrupt. Although we haven't gotten a very clear idea of what people believe is the source of this corruption and what the mine has to do with it. Although Derya told us a joke that Turkey should threaten to build a nuclear reactor, with their safety record it would cause all of their neighbors to give them free energy.
One of her friends was very excited to meet us but couldn't speak English. Instead we received a nice lesson in Turkish with a dash of English. Often, people will say something to us that we don't understand. When we say that we didn't understand they just repeat the same sentence, but louder. It helps when someone reformulates it and uses simpler words.
Arrival in Tekirdağ
Eating some balık ekmek on the boardwalk
Departure from Istanbul (traffic not shown)
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