It’s nice to be back home. 10 days is a long time to be gone, and travelling like this always makes me feel very disconnected to the real world. I went out one night, during Game 5 of the Lakers/Celtics series, and the Lakers were up by 20, and poised to pull the series to 3-2. When I woke up the next morning, the Lakers had lost, Tim Russert was dead, and R. Kelly wasn’t going to jail. Add in the countless earthquake aftershocks, the flooding in Iowa – Iowa?, and cyclones in Burma, and it’s like returning to a new world. Returning to work jet-lagged wasn’t all that exciting though…
But here are my post-trip thoughts. First – it was really shocking that so few people spoke english (i know, I know – my last time bringing it up). On our last night in Istanbul, there was a group of high school students at the cafe we were at, and they were there with their teacher. We started talking to them, and none of them spoke more than a few words of english, and the teacher struggled with even basic words.
Coke and all soft drinks are crazy expensive, $3 – $4 per can. All in all – Turkey is not a cheap country by American standards. It was actually pretty comparable. The one area that Turkey was way out of our price range was American liquor. $22 for a jack and coke, and $10 – $15 for the well drinks.
Turkish cuisine is all you get. Chicken sheesh, bread, spreads, blah, blah blah. And no spice to the food – the Turks are not lovers of the spicy.
The country is very clean – both pollutant-wise, and litter-wise. The latter was a bit shocking given that we coulnd’t find a single trash can on the city streets of Istanbul. We would be holding empty plastic cups for blocks until we could find a cafe to throw them away in, and yet, no trash on the ground.
Big smoking culture. Not the women as much, but it feels like 75% of the guys between 18 – 80 smoke. Well, they don’t actually live that long I don’t think, but suffice it to say, when you go out at night, you will come home smelling of smoke, regardless of where you visit.
Very nice, friendly people. Outside of the language difficulty issues, everyone was happy to help us find our way, provide information, etc. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip were the people we met along the way. There was definitely poverty in Turkey, and Istanbul in particular but we didn’t see it in a way that we have seen in other dark-skinned countries. Not many beggars, not many homeless.
Travelling with friends always makes the experience richer and deeper. We were able to recap, laugh, had people to enjoy the nightlife with, and there were times where the boys could go off and have boy time while the girls napped, or did each other’s hair, or whatever it is that women do when they find themselves man-less.
It’s hard to pick one highlight of the trip, but one of the highlights was saving the bird. It was just one of those cool once-in-a-lifetime moments where we had the chance to do something cool, and we did it. Another highlight was all the dancing. I haven’t danced this much collectively in about 15 years. Good times.
No real lowlights. A taxi driver tried to ”take us for a ride”, but it wasn’t that big a deal. i can’t really say that I was disapointed with any part of the trip. I liked Istanbul, but didn’t love it. Nicer mosques in India, older sights in Cairo and major Inidan cities. Nice, but outside of the Blue Mosque which is really spectacular, no real wonders. I really liked the beaches, but I liked Sharm better. Overall – Turkey ranks behind most of the other “foreign” places I have been (Egypt, East Africa, India, etc.), but ahead of the European places I have been (only Portgual and the UK). So, it is either my favorite European country, or my least favorite developing nation. Nothing really to dislike, it just didn’t have a strong identity.
