Back to a Land Made for You and Me

A few weeks and an near-inexplicably large amount of miles later, I'm still around. Currently, you may find me in Pittsburgh, PA, visiting my brother and his family. Tonight, I fine tuned my back rubbing skills, lulling nephew and niece into the dreamy pulls of slumber with the all-powerful magic of my soporific hand. Fortunately, the keys on my computer don't succumb to the drowsy capitulation brought about by my fingers.

Since my return to America two and a half weeks ago, I've been doing things Beach Boy style, getting a' round round round (yeah I get around). It all started in NYC, then it rolled up to Boston and finally flew over to Pittsburgh. Changing faces, changing places, the only constant factor a fearless trudge through the pixel-powered pages of the job search world. It's, as we all know, a great time to join the ranks of the unemployed. Stellar opportunities, low levels of competition, ha, ha and ha ha ha. Some days one feels more discouraged than others, but in all, I have faith, buoyed by small replies of encouragement, that although love may not be in the air, possibility is. It's only a matter of time before my swashbuckling skills and dashing good looks win someone over.

For now though, we're going cold turkey on the job talk and talking Turkey.

I had planned on my travel of the last hurrah being one of those glorious solo ventures into the unknown, the kind where you get chased by the wild dogs of chance. That would have worked out if only my family doesn't have friends or relations on every square inch of the earthly sphere. As it turns out, Yasemin who once, 17 foggy years ago, stayed with my family as an exchange student lives in Istanbul. So I revamped the cadre of my impending travel in my mind, and let the trailblazing plans melt into a more easy-going mentality. I could not have asked for more gracious hosts than Yasemin and her brother in Istanbul and her father and her mother in Bursa.

The country struck me as much more Westernized than I imagined. I suppose I had some Delacroix harem-esque vision of the country inked across my mind. Albeit the stray cats and dogs, the street vendors selling anything and everything wherever roadside space was available, and the inebriating semi-chaos of the old streets, the country as a whole has a Westernized facade. When one speaks with a real Turk (as opposed to a fake one), one gathers the ability to walk behind this Western facade and see that it is nothing more than a building with a false front. Behind this relative modernity is an emptiness filled with governmental corruption, abounding bribes and meaningless work contracts. The economy is dragging along on the dregs of scraping by (what's new?), and the average monthly salary is roughly the same as the average monthly rent.

From the visit to the hammam that sent my fingers and toes tingling like electrostatic fields as they soaked in the deliciously hot water in Bursa to the freezing afternoons spent wandering by rundown clapboard buildings of Istanbul, I tried to get a varied taste of Turkey. I stuffed the days with breadcrumbs of glittering blue Iznik tiles in mosques and the gravy of the Bosphorus river, which despite the inclement weather, remained a stubbornly beautiful shade of teal.

Despite the the, at times, wary advice I recieved from outsiders regarding traveling alone in Turkey as a single female, I found people to be as hospitable as the chai tea they served vistors. A few situations push the envelope of normal contact, but I made sure to stamp the damper of a wax seal on any action that was even scented with the tinge of indecency. Did I want to go see the upstairs office of ye sketchy shop keeper in the Great Bazaar? No. Did I acknowledge the questions tossed at me by the occassional haranguer in a tourist area? No. I carried my big stick and knew when to tap it resoundingly on the floor.

That said, whenever you visited a shop, there was always a ready cup of tea, steaming out of the dainty bulge of a glass cup. While visiting the island of Buykada, I stumbled upon the hotel where Attaturk, the father of modern-day Turkey, stayed. The grounds keeper (or so I believe he was) invited me in to take a look. He spoke no English, and I a bare dusting of Turkish, so we communicated through a series of charades and drawings worthy of an international Cranium competition. The visit ended, two newfound mimes sipping glasses of a terrible vinagrette of Turkish wine in the living room of the apartment where Attaturk has stayed. There I was, drinking wine with an old Turkish man in Attaturk's apartment. In any case, I made sure to keep my guard up like an invisible burka.

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"So am I glad to be back?" everyone is asking. Yes. I'll close this entry out with a bit I wrote on the bus a few days post my arrival in the States. The sandman is starting to explore the convexes of my eyelids, so I feel it time to withdraw to the warm concave of a dent in a comfortable mattress. So with a simple copy and paste, I close out for the evening. Scissors and glue ready please.....

Six months and four countries later, your fearless adventurer Hannah Americana has finally rolled back into the homeland. Scraping thee dust off her travel-weary chaps, she straightens up, stretches her arms high above her head and lets out a contented howl. Home, home at last.

Curled up into a bony bundle on the cushioned seat of a bus, I’m rolling down the endless stretch of highway that serves as a conduit between the electric forces of New York City and Boston. Out the window, vast expanses of parking lot filled with the baubles of sun-baked cars stand next to somber shopping plazas as typically monstrous as America as has become accustomed to. This view, upon returning from my first European year would have left me scrunched up in fetal position, yowling curses of dislike and longing wanly for the year I’d just left in France. This time around, after 6 months in Britain, I stare out at this site, the twitch of a smile upon my lips. I feel ready to be here. Accepting. Content.

Unlike most teenagers, I never had a rebellious stage with my parents. To make up for lost angst, I had a period of avowed denial of my country. I think I've, at last, grown out of this phase. I think I'm ready to wrap my arms full of sundry states and paint myself in soils as diverse as the crystalized patterns of snowflakes.

As I turned on the tap in the Brooklyn apartment of my friend Nora this morning, I smiled as hot and cold water rushed out of the same spigot. No longer would I have to mix water in the palm of my cupped hands freezing and burning my skin as I attempted to draw water of a palatable temperature from the old separate faucets of an English sink. No longer would I have to stand in the Tube, putting on an implacably unfeeling face as I heard the announcement, " the Y line is delayed because of a man under the train at X station." No longer would I have to have a constant dank cling to my bones like unhappy sinews.

It wasn't all grim and gore. The experience was a good one, I'm glad I went, glad I can tuck the whole into the theoretical pack of my travels. There are many fond memories I'll store away as sweet biscuits in the tin of my mind, but for now, I stand on the edge of the unnamed next chapter, happy to see the cowboy boots (yes take that as a literary symbol) on my feet.