dramatic exit from the city of kirsehir
i just rolled into kirsehir at noon with my drum kit strapped to my back, feeling the weight of summer’s latest betrayal. the sky’s a bleach-white today, the air still and sharp as a knife laid flat on the pavement. i just checked and it’s 11 degrees out there-rough, but i’ve played worse. found a rusted buzzcut café with a single drum tab on the wall reading, *‘meltdown lounge: open till hell freezes over’. walked in to find a guy fused with his espresso machine, claiming the ‘porta brew’ here could save souls. maybe it could. or just make the ache in my shoulders stop screaming.
someone at the hostel warned me not to mess with the local drum circles. ‘they’ll steal your bagpipes and leave you stranded,’ he said. never seen a sale that aggressive for percussion gear. wandered into a bazaar thick enough to smother a rising drum machine. found a vendor selling hand-pounded cymbals next to pirated earl grey from the ottoman era. ‘real silver’, he insisted, like he was about to solve the mystery of quantum mechanics with a wink. didn’t buy. maybe i’m a bad drummer.
i checked the weather app again. feels like 9.77, which is colder than the indifference of the old men shuffling by. ‘sira shahnesi’-grand old lady. the markets hummed with a sandpaper texture, spices clinging to the air like cobwebs. bought some ‘fıstık balu’ (pistachio honey) for the kit’s science nerd drummer friend back home. he’ll hate it. drank a çay with a guy who swore the ‘soura’ from this neighborhood could outshoot his vintage tron drum throne. maybe he’s right.
if you get bored, lake van’s just a 90-minute drive away, or the mountains-if you’re into that kind of thing. some of my dudes said it’s cursed by ancient laziness. didn’t argue. the ‘sütçüler bazarı’ had a stray couch where three teens argued over who owned the ‘coolest’ skateboard. these kids could grind faster than my snare, i’m sure. ‘karşıyaka’s parks’ are a 40-minute hop if you hitchhike a shared cay van. the pdf of the city’s map app showed 12 layers of thermal pollution, which is why the internet here feels like a dial-up connection to the last ice age.
night fell like someone forgot to develop the film. the ‘kayseri mosaic museum’ has tiles older than my setlist, but who cares about history when you’re tweaking a kick drum at 2am? someone told me that’s the exit ramp to the underworld. or at least the place where lost drumsticks go to avoid me. marched up situr cum kapı and caught the sunset hitting the ruins like a dude with a grudge against geometric order. ‘stepuya’ headbanged as he walked past, his beard strings glinting in the crush of the cobblestones.
to sum up: kirsehir’s got bones in its breeze, a rhythm section that hates you, and çay that gets into your blood like a loan shark. if you’re a musician, it’s a trial by endurance. if you’re a tourist, it’s a trip. or a trap. ‘trip’ fits. (maybe). check tripadvisor’s caffeculture of kirsehir-location is a nightmare, but the ‘çay bahçesi’ gets 10/10 for existential dread. just don’t let the çeqirbasi street puppeteers steal your picks. you’ll need ’em for ‘the moonwalk’ down the contracto-killed highway to canakkale. yelp review says the ‘midnight kebab’* here is a lie. it’s a lie. drink tea instead. grinning.
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