We could guess that the main language in the North of Turkey would be Turkish. That the knowledge of English of the Turkish graduate students is on par with that of an English toddler, was beyond our exceptions. Being Flemish has some advantages in these situations: we more or less 'know' a few languages, and we really needed to use them the most recent days: French, English, German and yes, even our own Dutchy-Flemish were of great use. Also our Turkish starts to be as good as that of a Turkish toddler. We found out that, if you ask for "beer cola, 'undred fanta", you don't get a beer-coke and hundred limonades, but you will get 1 cola and 14 fanta's. Yes, we are able to count to 10 and even up to 99, with a little bit of help.

The fjords of Sinop

We took the night bus from Istanbul in the direction of the Black Sea to Sinop. It seems this is a very touristic destination for the Turks, which made it hard for us to find a hotel room. But well, we found a small room and we're ready to discover Sinop. It is a bit the Blankenberge - some sea-side town in Belgium - at the Black Sea of Turkey. We don't hear any other language than Turkish, and we don't see any other tourists, except for the Turkish ones.

After check-in and a small siesta, we decided to spend the afternoon in Hamsilos. The, according to the touristic guides, beautiful fjords are going up to Sinop, so we had to admire them here. A fjord, in this sense, is 'a mountain-like steep bay formed by glaciation. The ones here are a few meters high and obviously nothing compared to the fjords in Scandinavia. But we found ourselves a nice bay and it was Tuesday - our normal swim day - so we took a swim.

According to a Turkish Dutchman, or a Dutch Turk, that the Turks themselves don't like to swim there, but they prefer to flock together at a beach a few kilometers closer to Sinop.

The waterfalls of Erfelek

The waterfalls of Erfelek were a not-to-miss. Getting to Erfelek is rather straight forward, but the waterfalls are still quite far from Erfelek. We didn't think it would be that hard to get transport to the waterfalls. Luckily, a Turkish Dutchman, or a Dutch Turk was there to help us out - yes, it's here that our Dutch was of our benefit.

With more than a bit amazement, he looked at us when we confirmed that we really planned to do the 28 waterfall-walk with our slippers. We didn't bring any other shoes to Erfelek. We can also confirm to you that the waterfall-walk is really nice and beautiful - a combination of the Fondry des Chiens and an walk along the Ninglinspo, a little free hint for a Ardens-trip in Belgium - but also that walking along waterfalls is pretty hard in slippers. We also know why slippers are called 'slippers' :).

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Ruth was imitating the 4 minarettes and dome of the blue mosque! (see episode 2 )

New question: what's the name of the dish in the picture below? We really like it a lot!