The last of the airport updates...

Waking up exhausted mentally and physically from the day before, we didn’t understand why we had to be somewhere at nine, because it was just a lecture with our group only, and that’s just a silly time. We took cabs to the university, because when you fit five (or even four), it’s cheaper than the metro. Five of us who are always on time because we respect this class became exasperated and left down the street for the first cab. We got in, and I said, ‘Bahçesehir Universitesi,’ and the cabby repeated the first word, which Jessica confirmed and added the second again. We sat and enjoyed the ride, except I didn’t, because I’m not used to cabs, and I hate how they drive like everything is a race and they have no regard for anyone’s life. Also, I take it upon myself to watch things like the temperature and gas gauges (the second of which was on empty this entire time), the speed, and where we’re going. Sure enough, we start heading over the bridge to Asia, and this is not right. Knowing the most Turkish in the cab, I say something that amounted to, ‘No, Bahçeşehir Universitesi, not here, there,’ and I pointed back across the bridge. The cabby apologises and points to some random university that we’re passing and mentions something about two, to which I reply, ‘Okay, I understand, okay okay, there, Bahçeşehir’ and point again. He continues driving through Asia, and it’s when we get on a freeway that I stick half my body from the back up the front of the cab and say, ‘No! Bahçeşehir Universitesi, Nısantısı [a district near which it is] there, not here!’ And the cabby explains that, O, that’s Bahçeşehir Campus, and Bahçeşehir University is out here. He finally understands, and we head back into Istanbul in rush hour traffic. Yippee. We get across another bridge, racking up a fare, Meaghan freaking out for the gas gauge and feeling nauseous from worry and motion sickness. We get to Nısantısı with me having to point streets most of the way, and I want to poke this cabby in the eye. He pulls into some random lot and I repeat Nısantısı again, and then say ‘Bahçeşehir, Deniz Müzesi. Nısantısı’ exasperatedly, and the cabby asks a man out the window if there’s a Bahçeşehir near the Sea Museum.

Great, our cabby doesn’t even know Istanbul as well as I do. Awesome.

After he confirms that I’m not making this up, we drive down, and I have to keep pointing streets. I make him pull right up next to the big blue sign that says ‘Bahçeşehir Universitesi’ pointing to the big building that says ‘Bahçeşehir Universitesi’ on it, and nothing about a campus. We go to give him 10 YTL, because the original fare should have been 7, but Emre (hocam’s second cousin or something), who has less than I do between his legs, I’m sure, talks with him, explains to us that there are two Bahçeşehirs (no shit, Sherlock!) and pays the full 35 YTL fare. No money out of my budget, at least.

Our would-have-been-first group ends up last sitting outside for our lecture, where we are told that there are two Bahçeşehirs, and we had to ask for the Beşiktaş one. Thanks for mentioning this in any of the past two weeks that we’ve been going there, those in charge. Every other cab’s students said the same thing that we did and got there fine. We were also told, with a dig at the drama situation, that we should pay for our mistakes, and you pay for what you do, just like in America. Excuse me? I would NOT have paid that fare in America! I knew the city better than the cabby, and he nearly killed us SEVERAL times! I would that I had thrown up on him. Grrr… Also, yours truly had to speak broken Turkish to get us back from the abyss of the next continent, thank you very much, and you’re welcome for not losing five of your students, because you’re staying at a residence an hour from ours. Do not tell me that I’ve made a mistake. But o, we should have asked the residence to get us the cabs and tell them where we’re going, even though we have to walk from the side street down to the main street to get them, and everyone else did the same thing that we did. Over.

After the reflection sort of thing, we took the metro to some touristy shopping district, where I had more dondurma and received less change back than I should have, because apparently things are two difference prices: one before you give them the money, and the other before they give you your change back. I told her, in perfect broken Turkish, ‘This ice cream is four lira, that is a five. This is fifty kurus [the change that I was handed]. Fifty? 1 lira?’ and of course, their comprehension of me went from perfectly fine before to nothing now. O well, 50 kurus. We loitered a bit again, me under the false pretense that once we met in a group, we were having lunch, and then left for a bus and the hammam: the Turkish bath.

1229 O, my. The hammam was incredible. Upon entering (separate male and female baths), we used the incredibly beautiful bathroom, and then, back in the vestibule, we changed two by two in litte rooms with transparent glass doors. Someone called, ‘Are people taking off everything?’ and I answered, ‘Yeah! Naked party!’ We stripped down and wrapped the thin linen towels around us before entering into the bath on our odd little wooden platform sandals. Inside the bath, stone basins lined the walls of the square room, separated by low stone dividers, with just enough room for someone to recline on the divider on one side of the basin and one on the other. In other words, two people to a basin. We were instructed to sit or lie on the large stone block in the middle of the room, which was hot, so that we would sweat. Apparently, one of the bath attendants (very large women) took Meghan’s towel from her when she entered, but she grabbed it back and lay down bare-backed on the block with the towel over her. We all were lying in this fashion until the topless call came around. Our professor not yet in the room, topless went down for a bunch of us. When the professor entered, some people didn’t care, but we all giggled until our laughed echoed and bounced off the stained glass octagon windows atop the dome, the chandelier hanging from it motionless in the sound waves, half its lights on. Some people sat up, and all but two of us pulled our towels up across our chests (I, for one, did not, because why?). After several minutes, the attendants came in and instructed us to walk in those little wooden sandals over to a basin to begin to rinse. It was time to lose the towels completely, and yet still sit modestly. The whole experience, really, was a progression of nude bonding, if you will. I hung my towel over the divider next to me and took the small metal bowl from the basin and began to pour water down me, feeling lovely in the heat, and playing with hot and cold water alternately depending on how I felt. Jessica was in the corner next to me, and Theresa around the corer from her, and they were both covered still. I implored them to lose the towel, because everyone’s looking at everyone and no one cares, and it took them some time before they finally made a deal and flung their towels aside simultaneously.

By that point, the large women, who were wearing only panties, had begun to scrub down with a loofa mitt four girls on each side of the stone block in the middle. We all watched at waited, beginning to walk about and socialise. I was pretty much one hundred percent okay with everything, somehow in my adolescence missing the modesty train, and dripping self confidence. Hocam walked about in her towel still, and it took a while for Defne, her fifteen-year-old daughter, to take off her towel for her bath. Somehow, I ended up being the second to last to go to the middle, besides hocam and Defne, but when I did, it was wonderful.

I was hand-motioned to lie face-up on the stone while a two-hundred and fifty (ish?) pound woman scrubbed off all my dead and peeling, sunburnt skin from my body, wiping off all of Spain, all of Turkey, all the squat toilets, all the fag smoke from nights out, silly Turkish boys, everything... She then scrubbed me down with a washcloth and made bubbles everywhere, which made both me giggle uncontrollably and her smile and ask me if it was good. ‘Çok iyi!’ I replied, still laughing, bubbles getting in my mouth from the pure, Arabian soap. I flipped over on the block, sliding around in the foam, as she rubbed down my back, too, and then massaged me with soap. Her hands on my skin were so soft, and I wondered what it must be like to work here every day, especially for upwards of twenty years, as these women had. She sat me up and took my arms, scrubbing them, her hand on my wrist and my hand touching all sorts of things that I had to forget were awkward, American social custom as it were. She led me back to the basin to rinse me off, and they washed our hair after, getting the sea salt and the sand out.

For more questions about people’s reactions, especially the hilarious question that my professor asked me, and how I swear the lady who loofaed me did it with malice at one point, you will have to ask, and I mean no offense if some of you receive less-than-straightforward answers.

She smoked a fag afterwards (we were that good?). Seriously.

We went out to dinner last night at a really nice restaurant here that had a beautiful view of a few mosques, Haçik, and Galata Tower. We ate until we were stuffed; I had all of the vegetable appetisers with this one poofy bread that you had to pop to rip open, then another squishy bread that was naan-like that I used to soak up the last of the salad appetisers, and then pide (like pizza, but this was just melted cheese on bread), and then another bread that was flat with my salad and hot peppers (really hot!--made my tongue tingle, and that’s never happened before!), fruit and baklava for dessert, Turkish coffe, and the remains of my gin and tonic with lemon and also the mint that I threw in, because apparently there aren’t limes in Turkey. I’ve yet to have a decent gin and tonic on this trip, I tell you.

We didn’t really sleep last night. I came back, showered, tried to pack and procrastinated, talked with Gözde, and then finally packed. I slept for a little over an hour before waking up four minutes before we had to leave (read: I woke up at 0356), having Kristina knock on the bathroom door as I brushed my teeth, her telling me that everyone else was pretty much on the bus. She helped me cram my last few things into neat little bags and then throw them into my big backpack duffle bag as I tried to dress myself and wake Gözde to say goodbye. I ran downstairs and out the door barely dressed, accessories and makeup in accessible places for later. We saw everyone off, said goobyes and hugged. Sonja was taking a later flight, so she, little Emre, and I waited around. We wandered to Starbucks where I got a breakfast wheat popover thing with white cheese and tomato with a chai latte that was just a regular latte, which I didn’t even like because thy didn’t have soymilk, and it tasted really weird with regular milk. It tasted all fatty and salty and ew, and I wish that I had just gotten coffee or something, alas. After leaving at 0400, seeing everyone off finally at 0610, and then eating, we were pretty tired come that time. Around 0650 we lay down on the comfy chairs at Starbucks, our stuff tucked around us, and slept. I exercised my uncanny ability to nap for exactly and hour, give or take five minutes, and by the time that I looked at my computer clock again, it was 0750. We got up after a while, walked around, made sure that Sonja’s ticket that she had just bought was all set, checked her gate, waited, and saw her off before splitting up a few minutes ago.

So here I am now, having been typing this in a Pages document since 0621, it now being 1254. I have faulty internet access, and I have to plug the pictures into this now fourteen-page entry (probably entries) before finishing, but it feels good. Ryan is supposed to land at 1335, but his flight is delayed 25 minutes, so that means 1400. I figure that he’ll be about half an hour what with walking from the gate, buying his visa, going through passport control, getting his baggage, and coming out. I don’t know how far he’ll have to walk, or how long the passport control will take, but I’m sitting right now in front of the small screen of international arrivals, about eighty metres from the door. I’m a little nervous right now, I won’t lie, but I think that it’s mostly excitement. I’m also happy that I had only two-and-a-half collective hours of rest, because he’s bound to be tired after flying east, but I think that he’s right in saying that he’ll be too excited to be tired, because I don’t need a wink right now. I’m too excited to eat, even. I keep looking up at this small board, waiting for his flight, but it’s only at the 1305 flights right now.

I guess that I’ll go back and revise this a little bit, but I’m wondering when I’m going to finish this (these) entry (ies)--maybe back here to-morrow, waiting to fly down the coast to be picked up by our driver from the resort.

I miss everyone, and I hope that you’re all well! I’m thinking of all of you on this adventure, but that doesn’t mean that I’m in any rush to get home...