Have you ever had the thought that your day was too perfect and something was going to go wrong at some point?
I had arrived home and noticed that my washing wasn't on the line. I thought "Wouldn't it be funny/typical that after such an awesome day the clothes hadn't been taken inside by a flatmate but in fact been stolen". And that's exactly what had happened.
Enough of that and onto the day.
It was spent with the same group as yesterday with quite a few extras of varying ages. The youngest was 18 and the oldest - well lets guess in the 60s somewhere. We took a 1 hour bus ride from Istanbul and headed north to Belgrade Forest.
It so resembled New Zealand it was quite amazing. I even saw some fern type plants which I was surprised at.
Even though the group had some older members we did a pretty heavy hike across sometimes rough terrain. Just as well the oldies were very youthful. Again during a break a few of them played about with skipping ropes. Quite amazing really!
Throughout the day we stopped for breaks and lunch etc. There was sometimes dancing lessons at these stops. It was a sort of weird line dancing type salsa. Not sure what the idea was there but it was good fun.
Just as well for me that I'd bought a lot of food to take out. I finished it all and my water so by the time we got to a beach on the Black Sea I was ready for the small token-gesture tea we had there.
Whilst initially no-one spoke Turkish except for Sabriye during the walk people would come up to me and have a chat. By the end of the day I'd discovered that almost everyone spoke some form of English.
The trip back on the bus and train was a laugh as with 30 people chatting away and clowning around there was always something to watch and laugh at.
It was so nice to again be out of the city I feel I've spent the last 90 days in solidly. And especially so to be out trekking.
I made a few new "friends" and hopefully I'll reconnect with them all through FB or at some future event.
It's now Monday morning and I arose at 5.30am just because I woke up and didn't feel like going back to sleep. I'm jaded now and can feel a siesta coming on.
I've just been planning the many things I need to do and I guess the priority just to get it out of the way is a police report on the theft although one wonders if the rigmarole of getting that done is worth the pittance I might get back from the insurers.
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