The final tally is...52 hours of bus travel, 40 hours in Antalya. It seems a bit lopsided, I know, but the busses were comfortable, new motor coaches, I had books to read and crosswords to do so I actually enjoyed it. I would have spent hours sitting around reading and watching tv anyhow, had I stayed in Beirut for the five day weekend.
I wrote 84 pages in my journal. No lie. Much of it play-by-play type stuff. Mundane to me, but I'm sure thrilling to you guys. No major "stories", just more of the same awkward moments created by the language barrier. Like the waiter in a tiny Anakya cafe this morning apologizing for not having Nescafe and pointing down the street where I could get some.
That's okay, I said, just the soup then. He nodded in what I thought was agreement, then asked me if I take milk in my Nescafe. Huh? I responded no, I take it black, wondering if he was just curious how I would drink it if he had any to offer, or whether he was just holding out on me, playing hard to get with the instant coffee. Minutes later a young boy arrived with my Nescafe. He had been summoned from down the street. I wasn't sure what I should feel the worst about. The exploitation of child labor? My inept ability to speak anything but English? The fact that I actually asked for instant coffee? The bill for the soup, bread, Nescafe and salad was 2 million Turkish lira. About a US dollar. Since I only had a few hours left in Turkey and I wanted to leave with a clear conscience, I left a five million lira note.
I collected another good haircut story, too. Tolga, a sixteen year old apprentice, gave me a haircut and a shave. And he took off a pesky mole I've had on the back of my neck for years. No extra charge for the minor cosmetic surgery and he even washed my hair afterward for free. (Don't they usually wash your hair BEFORE the haircut? I think there may have been more blood than he let on. Luckily it was a fresh razor so I didn't feel a thing:)
I also made the classic blunder of ordering the mixed grill at a seafood restaurant. Antalya is a coastal Mediterranean port city and the old harbor is a pretty typical tourist trap. The docks are lined with seafood restaurants and I chose one with a particularly nice view at sunset. I was the only person in the joint, another red flag, and the waiter seemed really disappointed that I didn't want fish. "No fish?" he whined with puppy dog eyes and an adorable pout. I wanted to tell him that I don't like my fish to resemble the actual animal on my plate. No head, eyeballs, tail, scales or skeletons for me thank you very much. So unless your fish comes in convenient stick or paddy form, just bring me the meat. But I doubted he had any Mrs. Paul's in the freezer so I kept my opinions to myself and licked my chops for some sizzling shish kabobs. Well, apparently meat isn't the chef's forte. I got six scrawny, overcooked chunks of indeterminate flesh.
On a bed of iceberg. With a pickle. Oh well, I made up for it the next day by consuming a pound of lamb swarma by mistake. (The waiter made me believe that the "500g" portion was "normal. Not beeg." Liar. I read the sign on the way out. The quoted price was for a 100g portion.)
I'm home safe and sound now. Ready for the normalcy of Beirut. Hey, there's a funny sentence.
Love and haircuts
Stu