Let me start out with the first day, or really the first night. Forrest got into Izmir, the big city 3 hours north of me, at 8 pm, meaning after getting to the bus station and finding the right bus, he got into Bodrum at 1 am. A pretty ridiculous time for anybody to get into a foreign country where only on in about 5 people speak good enough English. To make matters more difficult, to save about 20 dollars on a taxi Forrest had to get off the bus almost 20 minutes walking before Bodrum and walk along a 2 kilometer side street with no houses, buildings or even streetlights with all of his baggage and some Christmas presents for me. But at 1:30 in the morning I was outside waiting for either a desperate cry from far off in English, or the police to show up and tell Vedat about a tourist they found wandering the hills, and here he came walking up the road, laughing with some Turkish guy, even though he spoke no English. That night he met Vedat, my host father, and told us how there were something like 5 people who speak very little English trying to translate to the bus driver where Forrest wanted off, but luckily, one of them were also coming to Torba, the suburb I live in. I had my own little Christmas that night. Thank you all who sent me money to help in my travels, and thank you Alice for the wooden puzzles. I couldn't put them down for 2 days straight. The next day was New Year's Eve, and we explored Bodrum during the day. Forrest saw the bazaar, marina, harbor and the castle, and that night we met up with some of my friends to celebrate the new years. The next day was spent getting to know my host family. The second of January, we headed up to Izmir, the big city for about 6 days. These days all blur together for me because almost all of them follow the same basic plan. Wake up, decide which neighborhood we wanted to hang out in for the day, send out invitations to all the exchange students, meet them, go smoke nargule for a few hours, then wander around Izmir downtown for once it got dark until we all had to go home. I should probably tell you what nargule is, as mom is probably freaking out to hear about me smoking. Nargule is a traditional Turkish form of smoking tobacco. But there is no addictive nicotine in it, and everything is filtered through water or milk and can be ordered in any flavor imaginable. Chocolate, peach, mint, apple, or more. Ive seen entire pages in a menu devoted to nargule flavors. I splurged a little on my self created nargule allowance because Forrest was here.
Only 2 days really deviated from this routine. The first, was the first day. I went to Turkish lessons with all the exchange kids and Forrest came along 3 hours later. Alexis's birthday was just a few days before, so we went to her house for delicious cake and lots of weird Turkish finger food. The next part of our day was the coolest. We went wondering around the Izmir downtown for a hour before Ryan got fed up with the stupid people handing out brochures and randomly grabbed one and said We go here. That showed the stupid brochure people who's boss. But since nobody really new where to go, we did go searching and finally found it. When the first guy who worked there saw first 3 kids show up then 6 kids, then we totaled out at about 9, he lead us upstairs, which is not an uncommon place for people to sit and relax with their nargule. But the weird part was after going upstairs we snaked through a door into the building next to us, then turned down a hallway, went down some stairs and through another hallway into what apparently was the party room as there was another group of people in there celebrating a birthday party. all 9 of us sat down and ordered 3 nargules, and lots of tea and about half a hour later, Adriana from Mexico came and joined us followed by Carrie and a couple of her friends from America. With a group of 13, we were pretty loud, but that was probably why the party room was so far out from the main room. The party next to us was finishing and they actually gave us half of their cake and a bunch of cookies before leaving. It was banana chocolate and ridiculously delicious. We must have stayed in that one place for 4 hours straight, a wonder we didn't get kicked out. Forrest was busy talking Spanish to Adriana and the Brazilians (no, Brazilians don't speak Spanish, but from what Ive gathered its just a little harder for Portuguese speakers to understand Spanish than it is for Americans to understand heavy Jamaican) and I was talking and laugh with the rest of the exchange student. I personally find it a shame that all of us are having difficulty making good and lasting friends that we hang out with alot, but it doesn't stop us from having fun anyway. The rest of the night was spend wandering the town, ducking into shops to look at random scarves, toys, shirts, or things that we just don't have names for. It was a great day with more to follow.
The other day that broke the trend was the day that we went to Efes. Me, Geena, Nathalia and Luana had already been there once on an exchange trip, but Forrest thought it would be a great idea, and he was right. We thought waking up and meeting at 9 30 would be good enough, but somehow we still didn't actually get on the bus until 12. We went through a small town and we started to see a few ruins and then the bus stopped and the steward told us this was our stop. We made sure it was Efes, and got of only to look around and realize that we were in the middle of the country, about 3 miles away from town. We also proceeded to realize that we didn't have a way to the ancient part of Efes. Or a way back into town. or know when the buses left to Izmir, or what exactly where we were going. So we picked a road that seemed to lead towards some ruin and after walking and the 6 ft 4 Forrest exchanging coats with the 5 ft 2 Nathalia for some pictures, we found a taxi driver who told us he would be our shofure (somebody tell me how it is actually spelled) for the day for only 15 lira per person. We saw the Virgin Mary's last home and deathbed, and we also saw the ruins of Efes, all of which are described in another blog, so I wont bore you with the details. Its really hard to describe the fun we had because it all came in quick jokes, quick situations, and attempting to translate. And I do not yet have the writing talent to make them interesting yet. Safe to say we did find our way safely back into town where we met a really interesting waiter who spoke 3 languages and was skilled enough in 4 others to make small conversation. It really is amazing once you get out of the US how common being bilingual is, and I have met many people who know 4, 5, or even 6 different languages. We also easily found the right bus back to Izmir, and everybody was home and tired by 11, all in all a great and full day.
Then on Wendsday, Forrest left, on Thursday, I went home, and everything went back to normal. Well normal until my next trip.
