Tuzla and Syreni

All my bags are packed
I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin'
It's early morn
The taxi's waitin'
He's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome
I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Ev'ry place I go, I'll think of you
Ev'ry song I sing, I'll sing for you
When I come back, I'll bring your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
John Denver

A big thank you to Jeff, the Marine Insurance guy I met at Pearson. Thanks to Jeff, I ate for free since he was able to charge his meal:) This is what being nice to people gets you. I said hi to a lonely looking traveller, and invited him to eat with me. Little did I know that he would pick up the check, including my spicy Caesar, a truly Canadian drink that in introduced to a displaced American who had had to change his flight four times that day because of delays and problems that needed solved. He was finally at the airport, ready to fly back to his beautiful wife and small children. On the airplane, I sat with wonderful people, and the guy next to me even gave me a really nice pen, when I lost one of mine under the seat:)

The problem with most vacations, is that we go to the other country and we stay in a nice hotel or Airbnb, and eat at lovely restaurants. someone makes our bed and washes our dishes. We visit museums and parks and listen as the tour guide explains the intricacies of the architecture of the districts. We walk, a lot. We talk to people and laugh and are genuinely interested in who they are, and what insight they can give us to this exciting place that we are in. But what if we did that at home? When we are travelling, we are not in an exotic place, we are from an exotic place, and the person there is just leading their boring life. It is different living in a place, rather than visiting. What if we traded our own city, our own country, our own life, like as if we were visiting it sometimes.

For me, yesterday was exciting, because we were following a crazes GPS, as it tried to pretend it knew how to get his grey Range Rover into Istanbul, on highways that had just been built, but not yet added to its database. For Recep, my Turkish companion, it was an exercise in frustration and annoyance. For me, it was a delightful romp through the hills above Istanbul, through tiny villages and forested countryside, with views of the Bosphorus and glimpses of the Black Sea. It was an exciting adventure that took me, a person just arriving from North America, from Europe into Asia in perhaps the only city in the world you can do that.

Dinner in the hills outside Istanbul. Lamb, Aubergine, Spicy Labneh, giant slices of fresh bread and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. Now, on the 19th floor listening to the quiet soothing musical call of the mosques sunrise prayers. Tomorrow, will be boat preparations to sail through the sea of Marmara, down the Dardanelles and out to the Aegean. Past Greek and Turkish Islands to Kas in the Mediterranean Sea.