mustafapasa for two

today an easy day trip with kate, my backgammon partner roommate, to a little town called mustafapasa. the garbage trucks were coming through on the wide brick streets and announced their presence with a loudspeaker on the truck.

there are three churches to see outside mustafapasa and we managed to find two. then we wandered the town looking at the houses with courtyards behind high stone walls, and under arches wood doors with iron fasteners to pull together and lock, and loose piles of thorny firewood.

twice hearing I Just Called To Say I Love You, once from a radio playing in a restaurant, once from a radio playing in a car.

it was fun to have someone to explore with for a change and it definitely took a load off because the truth of each scene didn't escape me, it was just kind of there in the words between us, in a way that i haven't known in a long time, travelling alone.

near the bus stop is a mosque with a gazebo outside with faucets and marble benches and shower slippers, and in the garden nearby a few hyacinths and a handful of dandelions. a restaurant with salt and pepper shakers done up to be tomatoes, and a cup of tea that our waiter insisted we have for free.

then from mustafapasa to urgup which is a city like goreme but bigger, with fancier hedges lining the sidewalks and a bronze statue of a man and a woman holding out grapes from a basket. the men in the tourism office wear suits. there is a levi's store but there is a little antique copper jewelry store playing opera from a reel-to-reel. in the copper shop, each ornate necklace and bracelet jingles when you touch.