Wanderlust in Istanbul

Taking the time to stop the motions of daily life to write is often really difficult. But when you’re traveling in another country, crashing on couches, living out of a backpack, and spending sleepless nights on buses, writing becomes almost impossible.

When I woke up this morning, albeit a tad hungover from a good time out in Istanbul, an alarm went off. I was so confused because I had set this alarm months ago and it took me a little while to see through the cloudiness of a hangover to remember.

A few months back I wrote a blog post on the 77th day of living in Saudi. I decided to do the same on the day that marked 77 days before my time came to a close. Even though I’m in Istanbul, I figured I would take the time aside to get a few words on here.

I’m currently sitting in a cafe/bar in the Cappadocia region of Turkey, rumored to be home to the setting of Star Wars which unfortunately after some research, I found out it wasn’t true. Instead, almost all of the Tattoine Desert was filmed in Tunisia, NOT Turkey. Anyway, that’s running off on another tangent. Being two beers deep and having at least 48+ hours of alone time on my hands, this trip has turned into a very introspective one. After 12 hours on a very crammed night bus, I’m running on zero hours of sleep and two Tuborgs. I spent the day exploring caves, riding camels, making ceramics and drinking tea with a local dude, and staring enviously at all the couples in love and making out in front of me like a few assholes.

Before, I could have easily said I’ve traveled alone but definitely not to the extent that I have in Turkey. I can also say that I came to Turkey a naive and capricious girl and have developed into someone who can honestly say enjoys spending time with themselves. I think there’s something to be said about a person who can be alone and quiet with themselves for days at a time. I recommend this to anyone who’s having a difficult time grasping who they might be or become as an individual piece of the puzzle in this crazy fucking world.

I have been non stop going and seeing and meeting and talking and exploring. I’ve met up with friends I haven’t seen in years, met people who were truly interesting, rode a motorcycle across the bridge that connects Asia to Europe, and ate way too much baklava, if that’s at all possible. I’ve stood in churches only 360 years old and slept in caves. I mastered the metro system in Istanbul and got to take a selfie in the Blue Mosque. I drank beer in cafes with cats sleeping on my lap and did some very drunk yoga at 3 am in a local bar with some Istanbul friends. It’s been a whirlwind of fun and excitement but also it’s such a sigh of relief to have a night of somewhat calm and quiet to get my bearings. Coming to Turkey couldn’t have been at a better time. When you decide to travel alone, it’s a very…well, almost daunting feeling when it happens. It’s the moment when you’re standing at a metro station, looking bewildered at the routes and stops and people when you realize you’re such a tiny piece of this whole big puzzle of the world and the pieces are so tiny and minuscule that if your own piece went missing or, like, fell in between the couch cushions into the abyss, it wouldn’t really matter and someone could still look at that puzzle and understand it without this piece of yours that you always thought was so important to the big picture. When you travel alone you really do come to understand your existence is so unimportant. Sometimes that’s a hard pill to swallow…

I’m writing this at a very imbalanced time. Missing family and friends and stability after two years of not having it really starts to take it’s toll. Much like Chris McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp, I’m slowly realizing that all these beautiful moments I share with myself more often than not would be so much sweeter shared with someone else. Hence why I hate seeing any and all couples of any age at this time because it makes me long for my own boyfriend. It’s been a long road of self discovery over the past two years and this trip is my way of coming to terms with how I’ve changed and how I value my time and the company I choose to keep or not keep. 77 days couldn’t come soon enough. It’s always very scary coming back to your home and hoping that your family and friends accept with how each time you come back, you come back a little different, carrying your experiences in your heart and knowing there are no words to explain what you’ve seen or done.

To conclude, I’m dropping a few lines of one of my all-time favorite quotes from one smart dude:

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” –Einstein

**This was written between two different days. One of which was hyped up on coffee and one which was slowed down by Turkish beers.