I want to talk about Turkey for this one. I want to talk about my experiences, interactions, what have you, with this country that I have been living in for the past couple of weeks.
I’ll start with a little background.
Last year was my first visit. My dad flew out with me and we spent several days wandering around Istanbul. After my time at Antiochia ad Cragum was over, I met up with my dad and brother and this time we rented a car and for two weeks we drove throughout central Turkey, from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, from Istanbul to Tokat. At the beginning of the trip, my dad repeatedly told me how Turkey was his favorite country ever since his first visit in his mid-twenties. I thought I understood what he meant after the end of last year, after I had spent two months here.
This trip has proven me wrong. I only scratched the surface last year. Last year was my first time out of North America. Everything was a whirl of new experiences; colors, smells, and sounds all vying for my attention. Most of the time I felt like I barely had enough time, let alone energy, to focus on any one thing long enough to fully study and begin to understand it.
I want to say one more thing about last year, I know, I should be focusing on this year, but bear with me for a minute. I have lived all over the place, six different states to be exact, but I have spent the longest in California by quite a bit and the minute I arrived in Gazipasa I was amazed at how similar – incredibly, ridiculously similar it looks to the place I spent eleven years. How can you fly nearly halfway around the world and arrive in the place you started from? It’s bemusing.
But moving on. What about this year? I think this year I’m beginning to fully understand what my dad meant. I’ve fallen in love with Turkey. It’s a strange experience because Turkey just worms its way in. You’re walking along one day and suddenly you realize that you’ve fallen in love with the place.
I’m trying to come up with reasons why this is the case, I realize that it’s a little difficult for me to simply declare my love and have no idea why or how but there isn’t one big thing. I fully admit that part of it is probably the similarity to home, to California. I haven’t been back for more than a week in over two years, but there is a part of me that still considers it home. Maybe it’s the people. I feel as if I’ve rarely met people who so wholeheartedly throw themselves into their emotions, whether positive or negative. Their loyalty is astounding but maybe I’m just not talking to the right people back home. Maybe it’s the history here. These are a people who can trace their past back two thousand, three thousand years. There is a dignity to these people, an elegance that draws you in.
Another random thought that I noticed while I was visiting Istanbul before the trip. Is there another country in the world with such a uniform diversity in womens’ clothing? I’m not sure there is. That profuse blending of east and west and then something distinctively Turkish fascinates me.
I apologize because I realize that this post has been not much more than a series of rambling musings, but it’s all that’s been in my head for the past couple of days. I’m learning a lot academically, I’ve been learning more about the region, about what occurred here two thousand years ago, I’ve been learning more technique, about the process of archeology, but it is these musings that I will still remember ten, twenty, thirty years from now. It is these musings that are causing me to grow, develop, change, morph, whatever word you want to use. It is these musings that are causing me to think, love, and learn.
Maia