Gül seven dikenine katlanır (One who loves roses should beware thorns.)

Turkey has two major seas. The Akdeniz and the Karadeniz. (White sea [Mediterranean], and Black sea.) From my experience swimming in the Black Sea, it's easy to see (no pun intended.) how they got their names. The Black Sea isn't the clearest body of water. It's not bad, but there is an amount of seaweed, which was used to comic effect. I did not feel bad doing a handstand underwater, or swimming about.

This post is part two of Amasra.

The second day was a bit different from the first day. The day began with breakfast, where I ate plenty of bread. It then continued with a "guided tour" of Amasra. The tour guide was one of the most obnoxious people I have ever met, and her descriptions were pretty useless. But, even though I had seen more with Doruk the previous night than I did on the tour, there were some good moments.

 Entering the castle. All historic sites are driveable in Turkey.

This might be funnier if you know these people.

Rabbits apparently got loose on this island and bred.

A light house that resembles a mosque, on the top of a hill.

Brandon being Brandon.

The Amasra museum of cool archeology and stuff.

Ottoman-era coins.

A restaurant's oud and saz-cümbüşü

Highlight of the walking tour was definitely walking up the cliff and taking those pictures. After that, we had lunch, and then a boat tour, which consisted of piling a bunch of people on a boat, and then going around in a brief circle. The karadeniz is harsher outside of the harbor, so I was mildly seasick. Of course, because jumping up and down makes me seasick, this is not a hard thing for the Karadeniz to have done.

I believe this is the boat we were on.

 Note the blocks designed to reduce the intensity of the waves.

 Tower and mosque together forever in one picture.

 After that, we went for a swim on the rockier beach, and I successfully swam to the tower, which was a fair distance and probably about the longest I have swam for (not touching bottom and such). I don't swim much. Then we had dinner, and the sun set.

There were still festivities to be had. When midnight struck it was Xhessica's birthday, and after a brief birthday swim, it was my bedtime.

Also: Brian O'Conner is the man.