Eskişehir

Bright and early Saturday morning, Gosia (Polish), Lee (Aussie), two Turks (Ersin and Osman), and I hopped in Ersin's car for the two hour ride East to Eskişehir, a small city with two universities. It had an atmosphere that I had yet to experience in Turkey. Yes small, but a very social atmosphere as the entire city is littered with cafes, pubs, bars, and areas that encourage one to get out and about, which is easy to do as everything is within walking distance from the cafes along the river to the typically beautiful mosques to the university campus. We arrived at about 10am, and were met by a Polish Eskişehir trainee, Peter, with whom we would be staying (and his roommates Apo, Kutan, and another guy I can't remember). Brief introductions were made and then it was agreed upon that breakfast was the next task at hand. A quick run to the grocery store, mind you we're in a college apt now, for the essentials-bread, spread, bread, and this gourd-fruit thing that is in season this time of year.. oh yeah, and bread.

After breakfast, cleanup, lounging, and getting ready, we are out the door for a walk around the city. Let's go see Eskişehir!! We walk along the main streets, and the cafes on the river, and stop at this indoor place with several cafes and shops. I'm told by Apo it used to be a farmer's market type place, where each present-day cafe or shop was a different vendor selling fruits and vegetables. It's very nice and cozy inside with the Christmas lights hanging all about. You might also notice the ginormous, metal chandeliers. They are commonly seen hanging from the ceilings in mosques, such as the famous Sultan Ahmet mosque with its six minarets located in Istanbul.

After our respective teas and coffees, we walked a bit more and stopped at the Aiesec office. We met some more trainees (Romanian girls) and chatted for a bit before heading out for a tour of the university campus. The campus was quite nice, and had various strange sculptures all around the grassy areas. After our campus tour and a brief lounging period back at Peter and Apo's apt, we, as well as several Aiesecers and trainees, all met up at a place called The Doors. This place is fantastic! You walk in to a courtyard area which, by the way, has a bonfire encircled by cushions, surrounded by various types of places-a nice, fancy restaurant, a typical bar, a disco/club, and a wine-drinking place. This is where we spent our night-traversing from bar, to fire, to disco (where I got to go up behind the turntables and pretend to be a dj!)-until god only knows what time in the morning.

Sunday, surprisingly we were all awake and ready to go by 10am. Quite a feat if you take into account the previous night's festivities. Again we ventured out into the city. We stopped at an incredibly beautiful mosque, among the various streets and shops. And all along the tour, we'd stop at this cafe here and that cafe there. The last stop and one of my favorites was a three-floor cafe-upstairs were chairs and tables like any regular cafe, on the middle floor were low tables surrounded by bean bag chairs, and the bottom floor had pool tables. The cafe also had a shelf of games like Taboo and backgammon. A great place to be lazing about, no?

After we had seen all there was to be seen, made quick exchanges of contact info and plans to meet up in a few weeks and come back to visit after Ramazan, there was nothing to do but say goodbyes, and head back home to Bursa.