My last post covered the first day of my trip with DG. I went to bed and heard DG come in at some point in the night. We woke around the same time and went to breakfast. The worker man was quite chatty and I noted jealously in my heart that DG had no problem carrying on a conversation with him.
There were two American gals who lived in my city last year. I asked them before they left how living here had changed them. One of them said that in some ways she has grown in confidence and in other ways she has grown more insecure. I thought this was an accurate description of my life. There are things that I do regularly that I would have never had the courage to do in America. In other ways, I feel way more insecure than I did before. I felt very insecure with DG as our time together progressed. It came out most in my Turkish. My competency diminished over the two days with her. I couldn’t get out a single sentence correctly or with proper flow. This made it even harder to try to talk to her.
As we hit the beach after breakfast and she immediately put in her ear buds, I finally decided to embrace that my time with her would not be spent in conversation. I regrouped, read the Word, and prayed. Then I went to my book and enjoyed the sound of waves crashing as I sat in sunshine. After two hours, she suggested that we go back, shower, check out of room and head back to the big city to do some sightseeing there. Didn’t see that one coming but I rolled with it. I was dreading it though because I had a heavy bag I’d have to carry around. I wondered aloud if there might not be a place to store the bag in the big city. She seemed to think there was. It turns out the bus station has a whole room. You can pay about $4 to store it in the room for the whole day. That was a win in my book!
Part of the stress of the whole trip was not knowing really what to expect at any and every turn. I didn’t know what time our bus would leave. I didn’t know where we would stay. Once we had a hotel, it changed to a different one. I didn’t know how long she wanted to stay at the beach. I didn’t know she wanted to spend so much time on her phone. I didn’t know why we were resting after swimming. I didn’t know how far the fish restaurant would be or how to order fish once we arrived. I didn’t know she wanted to get drunk. I didn’t know she had a friend there. I didn’t know how long we would stay out at night. I didn’t know how late she would sleep. I didn’t know she only wanted to spend two hours at the beach the second day. I didn’t know she wanted to sightsee in the big city. All of this not-knowing was building up inside of me.
From the bus station, we took a mini-bus to the touristy area. It was a long, hot, 1-hour ride across the city. I didn’t know it would be that far. After we finally got off the bus, we walked for a minute before she detoured into a store to buy a new shirt to wear. This was another, I-didn’t-see-that-one-coming moment.
After the shirt buying, we walked for a while. I was hot, sweaty, tired, irritated, and hungry. I eventually realized that after the 1 hour bus ride, we had not reached our destination. We still needed to cross the sea by ferry. We boarded the rocking ferry with people bumping into me on all sides and she wanted to go stand in the hot sun. This was a breaking point for me. Since she still was on the phone talking to someone, I decided to text my best friend in my city to see when I could see her next. She replied that she was leaving just before I would be back to go stay with her mom for a month. I had to fight back bitterness that DG had taken away the opportunity to see my good friend for the last time for a while. Like I have learned, I took it to the Lord in prayer. I began to sense that maybe the enemy was trying to pit me against DG. I prayed against that and asked for strength. We got off the ferry and took the requisite picture in front of the clock tower. The picture below shows me all smiles but as my tale indicates up to this point, things aren’t always as they seem.
We walked through a crowded outdoor shopping area for a while before we finally found some food places. She wanted fish again so we sat down at a little place. I ordered a fried version of some type of fish. I’m still not up on all my fish type names. The fried crispiness was great but the fish was full of tiny bones. DG ate the bones like no big deal but after my fourth piece, I was done. I decided to order a local salty yogurt drink to add to the fullness of my stomach. She wouldn’t let me since supposedly it is poisonous to have fish and salty yogurt water together. I didn’t push it. It’s amazing how much a meal and some prayer changed my attitude. And as we were sitting, we actually talked with each other.
After the meal, she wanted to do some shoe shopping. We did that for a short while and then walked along the sea edge to a grassy, shady place. We each got an ice cream and cooled off in the shade. While we were sitting there, a fortune teller came up and DG offered to let her tell her fortune. I didn’t see that one coming either.
We ferried back to the other side and got on a free shuttle to the bus station. This is yet another example of how different this place is from America. I didn’t have a bus ticket since I was staying an extra night in the big city but yet I was able to take the free shuttle back the 45 minutes to the bus station.
We picked up my bag from the holding room and then waited on her bus. The bus was late. She offered to let me go ahead and go but I knew that culturally that was not what was expected of me. The bus finally came and I sent her off. I bought a can of Pringles for $3 in celebration of finishing my “vacation” with DG. I taxied to my friend’s house hoping to take a shower to wash away the grime and stress. As luck would have it, her apartment didn’t have water. I ended my day with a wet wipe bath and hit the bed for a long, solid night’s sleep, glad my “vacation” was over.
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| Check out all those buses. Bus travel here is a serious business. And I love it! |
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