So. Sorry. Yesterday’s post may have sounded a bit like I was spouting off. And I guess I was. I wrote it in the airport on my way to Germany for my speaking engagement. It had been a long day.
I woke up at 4:30am wide awake. JB had taken the night shift in preparation for my trip. And a good thing too. Apparently Abigail woke up at 11pm and 2am wide awake. Yikes. While I didn’t need to get up until 6am, 4:30 was here, and I was awake. I got up. Checked my email real quick . Email from Orbitz. Flight to Istanbul has been … cancelled.
Not delayed. Cancelled. I called Turkish Airlines. Apparently it was snowing in Istanbul. I checked weather.com and sure enough, snow (a.k.a. kar) in Istanbul. That never happens. I think if Orlando got a foot of snow, it would shut things down in that airport as well.
While the person on the phone spoke English, the conversation was difficult to decipher. At one point I had to ask him to spell the word he was trying to say. It was abroad but he kept saying abrude, and I was completely lost as to what he was trying to tell me.
I finally ascertained that getting to Germany through Istanbul today was not going to happen. They could get me out the next morning. Wednesday. I was speaking on Wednesday. And flying back home on Wednesday. That wasn’t going to work.
Plan B. Or C. Or D maybe. Who knows. I started playing all of them. Not going was definitely in the works. It wasn’t looking good.
About this time JB rolled out of bed, incredibly tired from his long night with our little lady. Despite that, he jumped right into brainstorming a solution with me.
I started playing around on my bilgasiyar (computer) hoping to figure out something. I found a way to get to Germany without going through Istanbul, but the flight was a whole lot more expensive. And longer.
No booking that until I talked to my friend Jenny who was in charge of organizing this event in Stuttgart, Germany. The new option would take me from Adana to Ankara and from Ankara to Munich and from Munich to Stuttgart. It would take me all day and cost quite a bit more. If I wanted to do this, I had to take a flight that left from the Adana airport in about two hours. But it was an hour earlier in Germany and Jenny was still asleep. To book or not to book?
Jenny woke up and called me with about twenty minutes to spare. She checked the purchase order and told me I could indeed book the flight. Hatice stayed with Abigail, JB threw the boys in the van, and we took off for the Adana airport.
But it was in the course of my travels that my frustrations for this country grew.
I suppose this is normal. I am living in a completely foreign country. And I am preparing to leave it. I think my brain knows it. I think my heart is listing the reasons why leaving isn’t going to hurt as badly as I think it will.
JB told me not to post this. It is true that it is not looking at the positive much. But while I have loved living here, I want people to understand how difficult it can be to adjust to a new country. Here are the things I have had trouble adjusting to on my travel day:
- Driving. To start things off, the driving on the way to the airport. Cars creating a lane in between two lanes that does not exist. People jumping out from behind trees to cross the street everywhere. Anywhere. Stray dogs. Trash. Begging.
- Pat downs. I get to the airport. I start beeping going through the security checkpoint. Mind you, this security isn’t nearly as formal as anything you might see in the USA. Liquids are fine. Shoes are fine. But apparently, I was still beeping, and somehow, they determined it was my bra setting it off. I offered to take off my boots first and try again, but they declined the offer and the male security guard directed me to a female who simply started patting my breasts right there in the front of everyone. Once she determined that an underwire was present, she shooed me off. This has happened numerous times to me. I can’t even imagine what some lawsuit-happy-Americans would do in this case. But in my case, there was nothing I can do. Just proceed.
- Lines. I get to the ticket office and face a language barrier again as I try to explain that I have booked a new flight via a telephone operator. We finally figure it out. It takes nearly twenty minutes. There are two lines. A woman is waiting in between the two lines. But apparently she was deemed to be in my line because five new people came to the other line and asked questions, and she just waited there for me to be done. I was so frustrated for her. These people just kept walking in front of her. I wanted to tell her, if I knew how to say it in Turkish to just step in front of the other window. But it was as if she had chosen her fate and was resigned to it.
- Miscommunication. I asked for an exit row seat. The woman told me, in English, that I had one. I got on the plane, and it was not an exit row. This has happened to me multiple times.
- More on lines. When going to our plane, they open a glass sliding glass door and you walk out onto the runway and find your plane among the multiple ones that are there. Firstly, waiting in this “line” is incredibly unnerving. There really isn’t a line. People move past you continually. They push you out of the way. They aren’t rude about it. It’s just the way it is done. If you stop for one second too long, they pass you. Even with my “It’s-Turkey-don’t-worry-if-you-get-cut” attitude, it is wearisome.
- Disorder. If you are the only American on a flight with all Turkish people, you are outnumbered. You have to do it their way. And their way is so different than anything I am used to. I'm not sure if it is because they are unfamiliar with flying or what, but so many people come in and just sit in any seat in their correct row. This ends up causing great delays as a shuffle ensues -- the attendant trying to help people get in the right seats when someone doesn't have a seat. When you get off the flight, people do not wait for the row in front of them to go first. It is a free for all. You can be passed easily if you aren’t on your game. If you stand up, people will push you out of the way to get by you. If I am on the aisle and don’t stand up, the person at my window or middle seat might actually step over me to get by. The personal space requirement is quite different. I try to remind myself where I am. But it is so hard. It is so foreign to what I have grown up knowing. If you wait and get off last, you'll be the last person in the customs line which can get an hour long.
- Language barriers. We get on the plane. It doesn’t surprise me that after we are all seated, we have one passenger too many. There were three planes to choose from, and it was fairly random how you knew which one to go to. Because one person got on the wrong plane, this meant that that one person got off and could have left something bad (like a bomb I guess) on the plane. So they make all of us get our luggage and hold it on our laps so it can be attributed to someone. This is fine, but they said all this in Turkish. I’m pretty sure I was the only one on the plane who was not Turkish, and I had to ask around until I could find someone who spoke a few words of English to explain to me what it was I had to do.
- Dress. This isn't something that bothers me. It's just confusing to me. The gal sitting next to me on the plane was wearing tiny little shorts (not much bigger than a bathing suit bottom) and under the bathing suit were leggings with fake holes in them. This is so strange to me. In Turkey, showing your legs is not acceptable. You never see adults in shorts. Ever. However, wearing underwear with tights is okay. That’s confusing to me. Very short skirts, as long as they are accompanied by panty hose, is a-ok.
- Turkish rules. Somehow on my way out of the house in the few harried minutes I had, I left my toiletry bag on the kitchen table. So I didn’t have it for my trip. No real big deal. I figure I can borrow some make-up from Jenny. And my toothbrush ended up in my bag. So that’s good. But deodorant. I kinda wanted my own deodorant. I found a Turkish pharmacy in the airport in Ankara. I looked everywhere on the shelves and saw all matter of toiletries. But no deodorant. It’s all aerosol. No sticks. And tiny little cans too. Nothing like I’ve ever seen. It took me awhile to translate labels and find something that looked like it might work. But I did. I tried to ask the sales clerk if I would have any trouble getting through security with this. But I couldn’t remember the word for security in Turkish. I tried just saying the English word because I was thinking the Turkish word was close. It didn’t work. I tried looking up security in my dictionary. Couldn’t find it. So I gave up and decided to chance it and buy the deodorant and see if I got through. I got through -- in Turkey. Ankara let me into Munich but Munich didn't let me in to Stuttgart. Ugh!
- Male closeness. Men walking close together also continues to throw me off. I have realized that when I see men in Turkey, I immediately interpret it as intense conversation where the men must be up to no good. A totally unfair assumption, but one I am honest in admitting. I realized that the reason I feel this way is that seeing men walking close together in America would indicate men up to no good. But here, men just walk close together. They will walk with their arms around each other. Shoulders touching. It’s still so unusual to see. Men and women are never walking as closely as men are walking with each other.
- Garbage. I keep getting thrown off by the fact that after you eat at a food court or fast food place (the few that exist) you just leave your garbage on the table. Someone else picks it up. I am always looking for a garbage can.
- Garbage cans. And speaking of garbage cans, my Turkish friend Rana explained to me why I never can find one. And why the littering is so bad. A few years back there were a bunch of bombs set in trash cans. The powers that be decided to remove all the garbage cans to help something like that not happen again. But as a result, I never can find somewhere to throw my trash!
Now all those things being said, there are many things about this country that I love. For one, the thought that the deodorant I bought only cost me about $2USD. That made me happy. The lunch I had eaten was equally cheap (about $6USD) and also very tasty. While there are sometimes fast food options, there are always home-cooked options. They actually made lamachan in a tandoori oven while I waited. And when I was confused as to where to go to pick up the lamachan, an incredibly nice man who spoke pretty good English stopped and took the time to help me order and get my food. He even answered a few other questions I had regarding departure time. (Remember, I don’t blend so I think he was pretty positive I didn’t belong.) People can be incredibly helpful in this country.
Do we, in America, go out of our way to help people who look confused? Do we make traveling easy for foreigners? Do we help people who don’t speak the language try to learn?
Another thing. Turkish food is fantastic. Scrumptious. I love it. All of it.
But the language … not English. All that said, I just miss my country. I’m homesick for it. I’d like to think that my month home next week will help satiate my longing for the U-S of A. However, I am worried that it will only cause me to miss America all the more.
More on that in tomorrow’s post.
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