11 people are crammed into one very small car.
We have a real life archeologist steering the ship. Next to him, a hobbit holds on for dear life while sitting on top of a pirate. In the backseat we’ve got two pirates and two Slytherins, and two more hobbit-esque creatures sit perched on top of the four. We round it all off with two pirates crammed into the trunk, grunting loudly and occasionally breaking out into song. The little car struggles it’s way up the hill as we pass bananas fields and village houses. Little kids playing near the road stop to gawk—what the heck are the Americans doing? They must be crazy! All eleven of us laugh and those who can move their arms wave cheerily as we putter by. We all let out little shrieks as Professor Howe takes us around sharp turns with cries of “Here we go!” He laughs at the sheer insanity of the situation we’ve put him in when we informed him that we would all be getting into his car. We laugh with him and with each other, and when we finally reach the top of the hill we emerge from our clown car still giggling and with one more funny story to share.
A couple things to explain—First off, we have nicknames for different units when we’re working on the site. Alas, we are not actual pirates and hobbits. Secondly, the assignment for this blog post was to write about your most memorable experience in Turkey. I don’t know if I can pick a “most,” but I did decide to describe an eleven minute car ride rather than a trip to a historic site or the rush of finding an artifact. I had all those experiences, and they were more amazing than I have the words to say. I felt at one with history, and I understood myself as a lover of storytelling within this context. However, I wanted to let audiences in to this little moment of insane mundanity because it really encapsulated what I learned during the trip. All romantic descriptions aside, a bunch of us crammed into a car while hot and sweaty and tired as anything. That’s it. And that sounds pretty bad. But it was memorable and fun because we made it memorable and fun.
This is my first time abroad in college. I went once in high school and had an amazing time, but on that trip everything was laid out for me. There was time to study and time to have well planned fun, and I just went with the flow and had a blast. That’s not how it worked in Turkey, and I’m so glad of it. This trip taught me that when you’re abroad as an adult, you need to make your own memories. Of course this program set up amazing opportunities, but me and my classmates were left with the choice to make what we wanted of them. It was up to me to decide to be positive when waking up at 5am, it was up to me to find time to go to the beach with the Turks, and it was up to me to mingle with my fellow students. I learned that living abroad does not mean that I lose all responsibility and just look around in awe. It’s just like living at home, but with more opportunities for amazing experience. Those experiences are my responsibility to grasp and make the best off, and I feel that I was able to do so in Turkey. I feel empowered and excited and alive, so I’d like to send out a great big ‘thanks’ to everyone involved—it’s been an amazing ride.