Travel: it's such a mixed bag of excitement and exhaustion. We went home to Portland for the holidays and had fun just chilling with friends and family. One day Mike told me, "You know, I think if we lived here I'd really miss the adventure of every day in Tunisia." I had to agree, you never know what humorous, crazy, or just plain beautiful thing is going to pop out of nowhere when you're living out of your element. That is for sure one of the biggest draws to me about living abroad.
But to live abroad and to see you friends and family from time to time requires one very painful thing: transatlantic air travel. No matter what you do to ease the blow, a 13 hour time period trapped with several hundred other people in this weird floating alternate reality is just something to be endured. This time was no exception. In-flight we had already had several adventures...from kiddo spilling her drink on me to her throwing up on herself. The flight crew seemed to be in this happy yet unhelpful kind of daze: I appreciate that you are being as nice as can be...but can you please remember that seat 20A is having an emergency and you're supposed to bring a towel? Whatever, LAX-Istanbul was long...long...long but we survived.
Touching down in Istanbul was a bit of a surprise, the miles and miles of dense apartments were covered in several inches of snow and snow seemed to be blowing at an impressive diagonal. I soon learned this was a big snow for Istanbul, one they were not prepared for and so all flights were grounded. So we joined THE LINE. THE LINE was a weird alternate-reality conglomerate of people from all countries and walks of life who were suddenly thrown together and desperate to get a hotel voucher from Turkish Airlines. THE LINE sucked about 1.5 hours of your life...if you were lucky, sometimes it sucked a little more. We were one of the lucky ones, so we thought, until we got to the front of the THE LINE only to find that THE LINE was a ploy to divert some of the passengers from the THE TRUE HOTEL LINE which was actually downstairs. So we began our waiting a second time. At least now we were camped out in the general vicinity of Starbucks, so while waiting was painful, I could imagine that I was just chilling out and writing in a coffee shop...this is something I like to do, right? Kiddo basically went into outer-space land and started singing in this high moanful tone and dancing around; none of the other passengers were alert enough to notice her.
We were told the problem was busing passengers to hotels in the snow. We waited until our name was called another 2 hours later and then we joined a group of about 30 rag-tag travelers who were to be on the next bus. Finally...relief from the wait...and we started driving, and driving, and driving through the dark snowy city. Istanbul is so vast it is overwhelming. I had this feeling of being one small speck passing through millions and millions of day-to-day realities. Nearly an hour later we arrived at our hotel, The Golden Age. Really, I'm not joking. The Golden Age seemed to be something from the 60's cocktail parties preserved in unchanging detail. Dark wood, gold flashy trim, smoky reception area. The Golden Age was now home to a third version of THE LINE, a mob of completely wasted travelers and their suitcases. They called out names from the front desk and we jumped when ours was finally called. A bell-hop decided to help us by leading us down a dark hallway and then putting us in a service elevator. The service elevator didn't have a door, which freaked kiddo out, and so we we saw each of the 6 floors below us pass by and arrived in a linen closet surrounded by towels and garbage cans. We found our way to the hall and then tried to open the door of the room written on our card...was that 6302? An old man in a wife-beater opened the door....ooops. Must be 6303. And in we go. Room 6303 was a long skinny room with three twin beds spaced about 3 feet apart from each other running the length of the place. Kiddo plunked herself down in the middle bed and passed out. Mike and I climbed each climbed into our own twin bed, he at the door-side and me at the window-side of the room. I was just spacing-out staring at the snow and the mass of apartments outside when Mike said, "Happy anniversary babe!" Oh yes....that IS what day it is....the 8th of January, 3 years ago we said I do. I guess it's easy to forget when you're in the twilight zone called trans-atlantic travel.
The next morning we woke up and got to see snowy Istanbul in the daylight on our bus ride. Bridges, sea, small alleys and endless apartments looked so peaceful covered in white. Back to waiting at Starbucks. I bought a mug since the place and I seemed to have shared some kind of experience. That afternoon we got on our 2 hour flight to Tunis, home. When we arrived and stepped out of the airport we were greeted by a warm glowing sun. We all basked in it. One of the many reasons we live in Tunis. Why do we go through this kind of stress to live somewhere so far from home? Living at home is easy in so many ways...family close, a way of living that you intuitively know and understand. I can't really answer the question of why travel calls and why we answer. But we do, and we're willing to endure a lot to live this life in our home-away-from-home, Tunisia.
But to live abroad and to see you friends and family from time to time requires one very painful thing: transatlantic air travel. No matter what you do to ease the blow, a 13 hour time period trapped with several hundred other people in this weird floating alternate reality is just something to be endured. This time was no exception. In-flight we had already had several adventures...from kiddo spilling her drink on me to her throwing up on herself. The flight crew seemed to be in this happy yet unhelpful kind of daze: I appreciate that you are being as nice as can be...but can you please remember that seat 20A is having an emergency and you're supposed to bring a towel? Whatever, LAX-Istanbul was long...long...long but we survived.
Touching down in Istanbul was a bit of a surprise, the miles and miles of dense apartments were covered in several inches of snow and snow seemed to be blowing at an impressive diagonal. I soon learned this was a big snow for Istanbul, one they were not prepared for and so all flights were grounded. So we joined THE LINE. THE LINE was a weird alternate-reality conglomerate of people from all countries and walks of life who were suddenly thrown together and desperate to get a hotel voucher from Turkish Airlines. THE LINE sucked about 1.5 hours of your life...if you were lucky, sometimes it sucked a little more. We were one of the lucky ones, so we thought, until we got to the front of the THE LINE only to find that THE LINE was a ploy to divert some of the passengers from the THE TRUE HOTEL LINE which was actually downstairs. So we began our waiting a second time. At least now we were camped out in the general vicinity of Starbucks, so while waiting was painful, I could imagine that I was just chilling out and writing in a coffee shop...this is something I like to do, right? Kiddo basically went into outer-space land and started singing in this high moanful tone and dancing around; none of the other passengers were alert enough to notice her.
We were told the problem was busing passengers to hotels in the snow. We waited until our name was called another 2 hours later and then we joined a group of about 30 rag-tag travelers who were to be on the next bus. Finally...relief from the wait...and we started driving, and driving, and driving through the dark snowy city. Istanbul is so vast it is overwhelming. I had this feeling of being one small speck passing through millions and millions of day-to-day realities. Nearly an hour later we arrived at our hotel, The Golden Age. Really, I'm not joking. The Golden Age seemed to be something from the 60's cocktail parties preserved in unchanging detail. Dark wood, gold flashy trim, smoky reception area. The Golden Age was now home to a third version of THE LINE, a mob of completely wasted travelers and their suitcases. They called out names from the front desk and we jumped when ours was finally called. A bell-hop decided to help us by leading us down a dark hallway and then putting us in a service elevator. The service elevator didn't have a door, which freaked kiddo out, and so we we saw each of the 6 floors below us pass by and arrived in a linen closet surrounded by towels and garbage cans. We found our way to the hall and then tried to open the door of the room written on our card...was that 6302? An old man in a wife-beater opened the door....ooops. Must be 6303. And in we go. Room 6303 was a long skinny room with three twin beds spaced about 3 feet apart from each other running the length of the place. Kiddo plunked herself down in the middle bed and passed out. Mike and I climbed each climbed into our own twin bed, he at the door-side and me at the window-side of the room. I was just spacing-out staring at the snow and the mass of apartments outside when Mike said, "Happy anniversary babe!" Oh yes....that IS what day it is....the 8th of January, 3 years ago we said I do. I guess it's easy to forget when you're in the twilight zone called trans-atlantic travel.
The next morning we woke up and got to see snowy Istanbul in the daylight on our bus ride. Bridges, sea, small alleys and endless apartments looked so peaceful covered in white. Back to waiting at Starbucks. I bought a mug since the place and I seemed to have shared some kind of experience. That afternoon we got on our 2 hour flight to Tunis, home. When we arrived and stepped out of the airport we were greeted by a warm glowing sun. We all basked in it. One of the many reasons we live in Tunis. Why do we go through this kind of stress to live somewhere so far from home? Living at home is easy in so many ways...family close, a way of living that you intuitively know and understand. I can't really answer the question of why travel calls and why we answer. But we do, and we're willing to endure a lot to live this life in our home-away-from-home, Tunisia.
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