The Road Trip... (Part I)

I went to Ankara this weekend. I boarded a bus at midnight, and rode to Ankara with a friend. It was almost 72 hours non-stop with a new Turkish friend--we'll call her Billy for blogging sake so you can pronounce her name while you're reading--and we just really bonded. 72 hours of fun, and special, and hysterical moments will do that to you. She had an interview in Ankara that was short and sweet and left us plenty of time to sight-see...but I'll start at the beginning. I came face to face with Turkish culture in so many ways this weekend. When we got to the bus-stop, I realized that this was going to be a new experience. I had to force her to let me pay for my own tickets. She wanted to buy my tickets for me and she proceeded to want to buy everything else the entire weekend for me! I had to keep exerting myself to be able to pay for me and help pay for her every once in a while. I constantly didn't want to be in-debted to her and she constantly wanted to pay for things for me. We were kind of a funny pair always fighting at the cash register forcing our cash or card into the cashier's hand!

Well, we got on the bus at the place downtown where she purchased the tickets from and I had never ridden this particular kind of bus. It was basically a clunker and did not even have enough seats for everyone. I got very nervous that it was going to be the most uncomfortable experience of my life. There was a kind of mass of people that all tried to smash on the bus at the same time fighting for seats. We managed to get to seats together in the very back row. But we had our luggage in our laps and we couldn't lay our seats back. I very politely a few minutes later asked her, 'How will we make it to Ankara like this?'...'Can I lay my head on your shoulder if I get tired?'...

What ensued was about ten minutes of laughter that became so contagious (it was already almost midnight at this point as we're beginning our journey) that the boy sitting next to us began to snicker as Billy explained to me that we were on the service bus. There was even a man standing and she found it absolutely hysterical--as did I later--that I thought he might stand all the way to Ankara. After the laughter passed, I was ecstatic to find that the service bus only takes us to the bus station where we catch our real bus, which proceeded to be a very nice charter bus with leather assigned seats. Crisis averted, but pre-laughter, I couldn't help but sit on the old dilapidated bus (unbeknownst to me that we were only going to the bus station fifteen minutes away) with my backpack in lap and uncomfortably think that this was going to be a very interesting weekend...

The bus ride ended up being great, except for the break we took at 3:00 in the morning that roused me from my R.E.M. sleep. Lights were turned on and everyone got off the bus and headed for the hot food line. Why in the world wouldn't I want to be roused at 3:00 in the morning to eat Turkish food is beyond me...it was a good potty break.

The next time I was roused was right outside of Ankara when we were served tea. I think our bus hostess must have been convinced that I was holding the fast and needed to drink before the sun totally rose because I fell asleep somewhere before the sugar made it into my tea and found myself being nudged awake by the hostess to tell me to finish my tea.

We were happy to reach Ankara only to find out that our sweet hosts were without water. Welcome to Ankara. We freshened up in the bathroom at the bus station for our day and headed to our hosts' home. A Turkish breakfast later, and we headed off for the interview with the International Rotary Club.

It really was a wonderful wonderful weekend. We had so much fun, and the food I got to eat was only the icing on the cake...I got to eat Arby's, Pizza Hut, Schlotzsky's, and Starbucks (twice)...