Trabzon

Roberto, Cihad and I on the beautiful campus of the Trabzon University

As usual we stayed in Trabzon far longer than expected. How can we not stay longer than expected if we are hosted by great people in Turkey. In this case it was Cihad, a 25 year old college student finalizing his bachelor thesis.

He picked us up by bike as soon as we arrived in Trabzon and lead us to his home in the heart of the city. We introduced ourselves and we told him about the long list of things we expected to accomplish here in Trabzon: Fix Roberto’s broken spoke, order a pair of tires for him, apply for the Iranian Visa, work on our blog and rest.

Trabzon

That day we went to eat delicious Turkish food, we all ate form the same dishes but I seemed to have caught the wrong bite and I was a little ill for a whole day. Same day we watched movies, slept till late and just relaxed and did absolutely nothing.

The next day we did some sightseeing and figures out where the Iranian Consul was. The next day we went to take our pictures for the Visa, attended the consulate and in less than two hours we got our Visa. We were incredibly happy, our most complicated mission was accomplished. The next day we met up with a very nice Turkish young man we had previously met 50 km from Trabzon. His name was Mehmet. He was eager to meet us and so we met with him the day after.

Mehmet, his colleague, Roberto and I fooling around in their office after the concert

Cihad was really busy with his exams but he managed to spent time with us and help us order the tires, a pair of Schwalbe Green Line tires to end the puncture pain in the streets. A luxury we think is worth paying for. We order the tires from the store we visited in Ankara, should have known, I said to myself. We could have saved the shipment, but well we make a lot of planning mistakes sometimes.
The next day came and we worked on our blog, we tried to figure out how to enhance the surfing in our website.

With our collection we are prepared to apply for any visa now

This is a task that we are still working on. With three different languages it seems rather hard to accomplish it. In the afternoon we met with Mehmet and Hamdi. The invited us to eat in their office with an excellent view of the city. We had a really nice time, and then they took us to the panoramic point where we drank Çay and talked for some time. Mehmet had a Mexican girlfriend, so we talked about the cultural differences and similarities. As soon as the lovely evening ended, they invited us to a concert in their university. They said it was just a pop rock band. To our great surprise when we arrived it was singer Gökçe the author of our favorite Turkish song “Tuttu fırlattı kalbimi”. What were the chances?
Another miracle from Turkey: We ended up drinking a couple of too many beers in their office. Yes we ended up a little drunk, but it did definitely made us bond. We slept until 1 pm the next day.

It just took us two hours. Now I understand why so many travellers apply for the Iranian visa in Trabzon

With our Visa in our hand, our articles written and the tires ordered, we just had to wait till they arrive. So the next days we just decided to walk around get more acquainted with Cihad and Samet (his thesis partner) as well as Mehmet and Hamdi. Two days later the tires arrived and we fixed the spokes. We were ready to go, but we stayed for another day. I think the trip is starting to get to us, but maybe we just need a second air.
The next day we left, and met Cihad at his university, he helped us adjust our gears that were sounding a little bad. Cihad followed us for the next 10 km and we said goodbye once again to a great friend.