I have finally completed my great escape from Turkey! Let me tell you, it’s not as easy as one might imagine to go from having no passport in Alanya to passing through customs at London Heathrow. It required many different modes of transportation, a lot of sitting around, and some random encounters, but I did it! My adventure started at 10:20 on Sunday night, when I left the lojman in Alanya in a cab for the bus station. After I got there, I put my bag on the wrong bus, almost got on the wrong bus myself (who knew that there was more than one 11 o’clock bus from Alanya to Ankara?), and then was sorted out by a couple of (probably pretty annoyed) bus drivers. The bus journey went through the mountain pass that gives the coastal regions access to the central Anatolian region, which is nice in the daytime, but not much but scary winding roads in the nighttime. At ten past seven we arrived, with the rain, at the Ankara bus station. I had a kind of gross Turkish breakfast at one of the cafes located inside of the terminal to kill some time, and then I grabbed a cab to the South African Embassy. Once there, I proceeded to wait for about four hours with a large stuffed panther with green hair, the mascot for the World Cup 2010, for company. The extended amount of time that I spent in the waiting room gave me ample opportunity to contemplate what a huge waste of money it was for the South African government to pay to have life-sized stuffed animals made for their embassies. I hope that they serve some greater purpose that I am unaware of, like they come to life to spread the word of Nelson Mandela to all lof the non-believers in the major cities of the world. That would be kind of cool. Otherwise I can’t support the manufacture of these creatures. They aren’t even suitable for children, because they are so heavy that an infant could be crushed to death if the stuffed animal fell on top of it.
After spending a considerable amount of time in the embassy, and being addressed as Veronica the entire time (I was more than a little nervous that that was the name that would be on my visa when I got it), I was given my passport back, with the visa safely stuck into it. Woot woot! I am totally going to South Africa! The people at the embassy were really nice and set me up with their travel agent, who helped me to book the next flight from Ankara to London, so that I could take advantage of my new-found freedom. I hopped in a (hugely expensive) cab, and off I went. A few minutes after I left the embassy, the cab driver got a call and passed the phone to me. Apparently, my credit card had been acting up again (it chooses when it wants to work and when it will go on strike based on how desperate I am—the more I need it the more likely it is to refuse to work in a foreign country) and it wouldn’t run to book the ticket. I tried my debit card, but that too has refused to work in certain conditions (this time anywhere outside of an ATM), so I had to go to the airport, try (and fail) to reach my credit card company, find an ATM, take out enough money to buy a ticket to London, and go to the counter to pay in cash. I felt like a spy. That is totally something that a spy would do—pay for an international flight with cash. Less traceable. I am so cool.
Anyway, after checking my bag, grabbing something to eat, feeding some once-outdoor, now-indoor birds, and waiting for a while, I got on my flight to Istanbul…one step closer to leaving the country! It was a little bit of a treat being in the Istanbul airport, since it was decorated for Christmas with lots of hanging white lights and a few Christmas trees, some more traditional than others. I found Internet access and then promptly had my computer co-opted by some men from the Ivory Coast who needed to buy tickets. How they got past security without a ticket is beyond me, but whatever.
I got to London at a little past ten that night, and then lugged by bag up and down the steps of the London underground in order to reach my hostel in Bayswater. All together, it took me about 26 hours to complete my trip from Alanya to London, but I made it!
During my struggle to escape from Turkey, I had a lot of time to think about the past few months, and all that I have seen and done and experienced. I complained about the inability to flush toilet paper and the resulting smell (which, I have realized, seems to be an American issue and not a Turkish one. I have been in Turkish homes, and they are immaculate. There is no bad smell. We Americans are just gross and dirty sometimes. By B.), the oil in the food and the inevitability of meat in most dishes with nutritional value, and my many hospital visits (five in all this semester), but none of that in any way challenges the fact that living and studying in Turkey has been an incredibly enriching experience that has allowed me to see a huge amount of things that I wouldn’t have gotten around to seeing for a long time, to meet some amazing people, whether Turkish, American, or other nationalities, and to toughen up a little bit. I do not regret coming at all. I am so happy that I was able to have this amazing experience in a beautiful part of the world, and to have the time to really enjoy it.
Vicki out. Ayiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiy!
