Contextless Quotes

I recently came across my old travel journal from my nine-month backpacking trip through Japan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. Reading through it left me very, very amused. From it, here are some quotes for your enjoyment, taken completely out of their original context:

‘I’ve got the shits and I’m tired of traveling: Why I’m not cut out for this’

‘That was a terrible, terrible idea.’

‘My hotel (read: rooftop littered with rubbish costing a whopping $10 to lay a mattress on) is a dump but it’s all I could find.’

‘She was driving me crazy. Hopefully that thought will be a comfort once the solitude starts getting to me.’

‘The highlight of the night was probably me trying to say in Arabic, “My dear, you are so beautiful!” Instead, I managed to say, “My dear, you are so beautiful and big!” Ktiir vs. Kbiir. God…’

‘Loon was our raft captain who seemed either perplexed or offended when I tried to explain that he shares his name with our state bird.’

‘I’ll write more later about the moral conundrum going through my head at that moment.’

‘I met an 82 year old woman today who has been a Peace Corps volunteer three times – all after retirement. At one point she was the oldest current volunteer on the planet.’

“I just had a psychosomatic stress reaction to the Lao music coming from the bungalow next to mine.’

“Phnom Penh’s been great – almost too much fun, seeing as how a large part of our time was spent at a genocide museum.’

‘The hammock: I believe I’ve found my soulmate.’

‘I asked the weird Chinese girl in our hostel if she still had the tarantulas in the plastic bag up in her room. “Uh, I think so!” was her response.’

‘Suddenly serious, she told me, “Walking this path made me believe in God for the first time. It’s too beautiful, too incredible.”‘

‘I woke up at 4:30am to the sound of an explosion muffled by earplugs and a quick shake of the building.’

‘We danced to horrible techno music and took a “hard man” shot (snort salt, take tequila shot, squeeze lime into your eye).’

‘There’s something profoundly tragic about a people fighting justly to get back what was stolen from them even as there is little to no hope of success…It saddened me immensely, that rally. I walked away with a heavy heart and a bruised faith.’

‘”Are those nunchucks you got there?” I said absentmindedly toward, but not to, a rather pudgy but bulldoggish man on a sidewalk near Beirut’s waterfront. His posture snapped up immediately, as if he had been strolling along, just daring some ignorant fool to comment on his ‘chuks. “Yes,” he said. “Because I am master.”‘

‘I’m so lucky to be doing what I’m doing. It’s amazing, really.’

Minneapolis to Damascus

It’s strange to think that I’ve been in Syria for two weeks already. It’s been quite the whirlwind experience. To start, a six day journey in total, my experience traveling from Minneapolis to Damascus.

I left Minneapolis after my friend Mark’s wedding, which was a beautiful and extremely fun party. I said goodbye-for-a-year to Mark and his wife Kelly as he walked away from the reception holding a “Just Married” sign. It was a good night. After saying farewell to many more soon to be sorely missed friends the next morning, I left for Wisconsin for another friend’s wedding. The party was fantastic, I think a fitting way for me to say goodbye to friends yet again. My wonderful friends Maggie and Amber braved getting up at 7:30am the next morning to drive me to the Milwaukee airport for a flight to Cincinnati where I saw my parents for all too short of a night before flying to Istanbul the next day.

I arrived in the Byzantine capitol three days after I left Minneapolis extremely tired and jet lagged. My flight to a city in southern Turkey close to the Syrian border was at 6:20am the next morning; I was not pleased to find out that the only affordable shuttle I could take to the airport left at midnight. With nine months of budget travel fatalism on my shoulders (a resignation to the fact that I can control very little while traveling on the cheap), I trudged up the stairs to try to get some sleep before I left. Luckily, the rooftop dorm I was hoping to sleep in was full of Australians inexplicably hanging out on their beds during the middle of a beautiful day. I didn’t sleep. I did, however, get my hands on the best doner kebap sandwich in Turkey later that evening (only $3!).

I had to be shoved awake by the shuttle driver after arriving at the airport and then managed to nearly forget my baggage; one heart attack later I was banging on the side of the bus and screaming “my bag! Oh god my bag!” What followed for five hours was some incredibly uncomfortable waiting punctuated by a refreshing act of kindness by a Turkish woman who was on my shuttle. I was starving and no shop selling any real food was open at 3:30am. Her mom instincts must have kicked in and, sensing my hunger, she pulled out a bag of two bananas and three clementines and insisted I take it. A meal like that can make the difference between an incredible uncomfortable travel experience and a manageable one. I’ve said it before, but traveling in Turkey at times can be like riding a wave of kindness.

I arrived in Adana, Turkey at 7:30am and immediately set off to the bus station. I needed to make my way to Antakya, from where I could get a shared taxi to the border. In what proved to be a stroke of bad luck, I met a Syrian guy who convinced me that, rather than going through the main border crossing in the area, Bab Al-Hawa, going through the smaller, less-frequently used crossings would be faster. I followed his advice and made my way to a small town called Yayladagi by microbus. I thought it was only 1km (about a half mile) away from the Syrian border so when the microbus offered to take me the rest of the way for the relatively large sum of $7, I refused. I figured I could use a bit of exercise or, if that proved too difficult with 60 pounds of luggage strapped on my front and back, just get a ride from some nice Turk. In the end it was 6km (three miles) in the hot sun while carrying 60 lbs. No one picked me up. And I was walking on loose gravel. Naturally, I arrived at the border station about half an hour later exhausted, soaked in sweat, and relieved.

I expected to have to wait at the Syrian side of the border for my visa. Americans are supposed to get it from the Syrian embassy in DC, where it costs $130, but if you don’t mind waiting for a bit (usually 2-5 hours) at the border for permission from Damascus to give you the visa, it costs just $16. I walked up to the immigration and visa processing desk in Kassab, Syria and handed the officer my passport. “No visa?” he said. “No visa,” I said. I didn’t receive the next sentence well. “Go to Bab Al-Hawa.” The mudiir, the director of the crossing and the only one authorized to give Americans visas was sick that day. It was here that my drudgery was punctuated again by extraordinary kindness. On my way back through Turkish immigration (thank god for three month multiple entry visas) I was explaining my situation to the Turkish officer and a man from Antakya overheard me and offered a ride back to his city. He spoke a little bit of Arabic with a heavy Turkish accent and no English so our conversation was labored at best. With a stop for tea on the way, he took me all the way back to Antakya’s bus station and refused the money I offered to help pay for gas.

From the station I took a shared taxi to Bab Al-Hawa where, after a 45-minute long wait at the duty free shop while the other passengers bought ungodly amounts of cigarette cartons to smuggle into Syria, I waited for an exceptionally long 5 ½ hours for my visa. I arrived in Aleppo at about midnight and then in Damascus at about 4:30am. I got my job the next morning and spent the following days finding an apartment, preparing my lessons, and seeing friends from the summer.

It’s been a lively ride, but I’m happy to be back. My classes are going well and my Arabic surprisingly hasn’t gotten much worse after a month and a half long period of disuse. And best of all, it’s not 100 degrees Fahrenheit each and every day; it’s been hovering around a comfortable 80 degrees. More to come later.

A Few Turkey Photos

Greetings from Damascus, Syria, where I am now the proud renter of an apartment in the old city, right next to one of the world’s oldest mosques. My plans have changed slightly; I am now planning on studying Arabic for three months at Damascus University before (hopefully) finding an English teaching job either here in Damascus or in Jordan. Damascus is a fantastic place. I’ll write more about it later, but I’ll say now that its labyrinthine old city, lined with generations-old shops selling everything from tourist kitsch to hand-made carpets to arabic coffee makers is a wonderfully atmospheric place to live.

The photos in this post are long overdue. In the shots (except for the first one, which is from Olympos) you can see the lunar landscape and rich history of the region.  Cave homes and cave churches dot the horizon wherever you go in Cappadocia, which I had a killer time exploring on foot and mountain bike.  I also spent a night camping in a cave dwelling that was perched on the side of a cliff. One of the travel moments I’ll always treasure was waking up at dawn to the sight of 34 hot air balloons looking like polka dots along the moonscape.

The mystical Chimeara Flames are contiınuously burning fires on the side of a mountaın near Olympos, Turkey. The gas coming from under the earth ignites as soon as it touches air.

A lone horse grazes on a Cappadocian field.

Cappadocia's lunar landscape.

Feeling like a kid again as I clamber around a monstery entirely cut out of limestone.

Cave homes, although most are no longer in use, stud the sides of cliffs and 'fairy chimneys' shown in this shot.

The interior of the Church of the Three Crosses, which is built into a cliff face (as are all of the dozens of churches here in Cappadocia).

The outside of the Church of the Three Crosses.

Turkey Photos

Greetings from Selçuk (sell-chuk), Turkey, where Turkish keyboards are much different than home and are thus insufferably annoying. Its for that reason that you will not be getting any stories in this post – I tried and it was simply too frustrating. Enjoy!

İstanbul ferries and the Galata Tower in the background

The ancient, the famous Aya Sofya

Inside the Aya Sofya

A small hallway leading to what used to be the sanctuary, Aya Sofya

The interior of the Blue Mosque, İstanbul

Sunset in the sleep hollow of Ayvalik

The ruins of Ancient Pergamum

Kids I came across in Bergama - the girl was annoyed at the boys for butting into the photo

Me in the ancient Roman cıty of Ephesus

Friends in Selçuk