Saturday, February 26th, 2004

Today we had planned to go to the school. I had a fair amount of work to do, mostly because the internet connection at the school has been down for some time now. But, when Ebru came to pick me up she had something different in mind. A surprise. At first I was a little annoyed; the often spontaneous and usually inconvenient Turkish planning was once again ruining my day. However, it turned out to be a very nice diversion.

We found Hasan and Mustafa and went to pick up some supplies. Because the day was so nice, Ebru decided that a picnic would be much more appropriate. We bought some chicken and some kebab bread and made our way a bit north to the city of Payas. This little town holds a very interesting secret: an area called the Sokullu Mehmet Paşa complex. This place is an old castle of sorts from the sixteenth century, containing a huge bazaar, and area with kitchens and dining halls, and a nice mosque with an ancient olive tree that was said to be planted the day the mosque was finished. It certainly looks gnarly enough to be that old!

There is also an old Genoese fortress with plenty of walls and rooms for scrambling around and having a good time. Apparently a famous Turkish poet Dadaloglu, and an author, Namik Kemal, were imprisoned here in around 1850 for dissent against the Ottoman Empire. I’m interested to learn more about what he wrote and did, as all my friends were very much in awe of the legacy he left here in Turkey.

We poked around for a while, then made our way to a dilapidated area by the sea that used to be a vacationing area for police offers, if what Ebru says is correct. Now it is falling apart, but people still come for relaxing by the coast. We fired up the barbeque and ate a really tasty meal by the water. It was a really great day; I’m surprised that I haven’t learned to be as spur-of-the-moment as people here seem to be. If I had disagreed I would have missed out on seeing a very special place that is quite off of the beaten path. Check out the pictures… hopefully you agree that it seems like a neat place.