"I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm
going is what inspires me to travel it."
Rosalia de Castro
The miracle nut from Turkey!!!
“I’ll miss you! Come visit me in Istanbul!” I said, releasing my friends from various goodbye hugs around the villa in Khalifa City. The taxi that the university had arranged for me never came to get me and I was late. How fitting, since they never bothered to pick me up from the airport one year, nine months and twenty-two days ago when I first arrived in Dubai. Instead, my friend Stefanie and her husband Vlada were driving me to the airport to catch my final flight out of the United Arab Emirates.
There had been some problems with my ticket. As luck would have it, Christmas Eve morning in Abu Dhabi was blanketed by thick, white fog. Without even thinking about it, I made jokes about how God had arranged for the whitest Christmas he could possibly provide in the Gulf Region, forever devoid of snow. But then I got a phone call from my travel agent- a young girl from Yemen named Dalal, who told me my flight to Istanbul would be cancelled the next day due to the fog. Damn White Christmas in the Emirates! They had organized are booking for me at 3 am Boxing Day morning.
The next day, I received another phone call from Dalal-could I be at the airport by 10 pm? Turkish Airlines was asking everyone to be there early so they might be able to leave and avoid the fog. Hmmm. This was odd. Could she double check that it was ten pm and not ten am the following day? She called me back. Nope, definitely ten pm.
Amanda, Ken and I Christmas Eve at the villas.
It was a nice ending to my time in Abu Dhabi- a nice turkey dinner with all the trimmings with my other family-less coworkers. I wrapped up my unused things to give away and we did a fun gift game. People unwrapped cans of tuna, old speakers, books and bits of things hardly used- unusual gifts that had people laughing. They had the option to steal each others’ gifts which added a festive element of giggles and good humour. On that note I said my goodbyes and left for the airport in the back of Vlada and Stef’s car.
After a tearful goodbye with Stefanie (I should say floods of tears!) I went to sort out my flight with Turkish Airlines. They were closed. The gate wasn’t open.I called Dalal. Yes, the airlines said come at ten pm. Security at the airport said I had to wait till two am when they would open the gate. Pfff! It was 11 now. To pass the time, I text messaged my friends to say good bye for good. I got one from my boss that said, “Don’t worry about these little things now. You have done more than the right thing here. Fly away and be happy, Melanie.” And I sat in the airport with my phone in hand, hidden behind my mountain of luggage and cried until I didn’t have the energy to push one more tear out and down my cheek.
Homs, Syria from the air. I tried to get the round thingy in the bottom left but this was the best I could do from the plane window. My guess is that its some sort of citadel.
Why was I crying? Perhaps because I realize at the end how much I would miss certain people. That there were people here who were kind to me and knew that the best thing to do was to encourage me to leave in my rudderless state. But also because I was leaving feeling beaten. Like a bit of a failure in not being able to flip this situation around for myself like I have always been able to do before. For the first time ever I felt like I was running away from something I could no longer handle or attempt to fix. I had lost my hope in this place where so many other people were looking for it.
Latakia, Syria
Two am rolled around. The gate wasn’t open. But the airport departures screen finally told me and a hapless Filipino barmaid that our flight was cancelled till ten thirty am. The people at the gate would do nothing for me. "I have no place to go!" I protested. "Sleep in the airport!" They answered. I did what any seasoned traveler would do. I tried to use my tears to get a room somewhere but no one was taking pity on me. It was too much of a hassle to go back to the villas. And I didn’t actually have enough money left to take a taxi there and return again the next morning.
First glimpse of Turkey, around Mardin, I think.
“What are we going to do?” my new Filipino friend asked me. “I am going to sleep on this couch”, I replied. “Do you want to come back to the Officer’s Club and sleep with me? I’m scared to go alone.” I wondered if 'barmaid' was really my new friend’s profession. “I think the couch is fine, I replied. We took a big L section of the majlis sofa set up in front of the business class section- heads on the opposite ends on one of the large cushions, luggage rallied around us, I fell asleep under my winter cashmere coat to the lullaby of arrivals and departures announced over the blaring loud speaker.
What does a rainbow look like from above? a perfect circle! Bottom left corner. No wonders leprechauns never have to give it up.
At seven am I woke up, dragged my luggage to the bathroom, and washed my face with my Filipino friend. I never did get her name. She never asked mine either. We shared toothpaste and told each other why we were going to Istanbul. She was going to visit a male friend she had met before in Istanbul. Hmmm. I know these kinds of friends. I wished her good luck. Then we went to the check in counter and I was thankful I chose the path of least resistance the night before by staying in the airport. I was far too tired to make any sense at all out of my situation.
Turkish mountains peaking through the clouds.
I went to get myself an overpriced grande cup of coffee at the airport Starbucks. (The price didn’t matter since I was using up my dirhams. So funny that at this stage the Emirati dirham didn't seem to have a value anymore. When I'm using up old money at an airport I’d spend ridiculous money on something like an eight dollar cup of coffee just to be rid of the stuff!) Then I went out to sit among the smokers to enjoy the steamy fog lifting slowly up over the palm trees for one last time.
Turkish fog and snow, here I come!
I texted everyone to joke I was still in the airport. The texts I got back were comical! Yes, I did enjoy airport living. No, I didn’t steal something in Duty Free. No I wasn’t listening to the message that the universe might be telling me to stay. Oh no, I was out of phone credits. I hoped Rene could do the math of when I was departing and be there at arrivals when I landed.
I boarded the plane to Istanbul and as we took off, I watched the islands, the sand, the turquoise water disappear below me and felt sad that somehow I couldn’t make it work in the Emirates. But I could make it work in a place that fits me better than this place. A place like Istanbul that is a little more forgiving, a little more free, more inspiring and a heck of a lot more interested in a gal like me too. I started to sense the positive side of this: I could recognize my unhappiness and leave a losing situation and there is no failure in that.
I snapped pictures out the window of Syria below, and where the snow started as we crossed over into Turkey. And I began to feel lighter. Excited. Inspired. Happy. And I no longer felt like I was in an ocean of blah but moving on into unknown territory that would lead me into potential, opportunities and joy and contentment. A step into living in the now instead of hoping for better things to come in the future.
Istanbul landing! No snow, but lots of rain!
The plane landed and I bundled up with the other passengers, -put on my cashmere coat for the first time, Christmas mittens and a big scarf. I was ready! Istanbul, here I come! It was raining slightly and the air was chilly as I walked down the stairs onto the tarmac. I was here! I had arrived! As I took a deep breath and stepped onto Turkish land for the first time as a resident instead of a tourist, I slipped and came down ungracefully hard on my right knee! Oooooh. Not good! the other passengers waited as I slowly picked myself of the tarmac and limped my way to my new life. Ouch ouch ouch. A bump that I would feel deep in my hip the next day. A bruise I still have a week and a half later. But it didn’t matter. I arrived!!!!
Rainbow coloured knee! On the way to healing!
A week and a half later, I'm still taking it easy. Sleeping like a newborn puppy. Wrapping up in my coat and heading out into the rainy streets of Istanbul with Rene. Spending copious amounts of time writing in coffee shops and slowly getting to know the transportation system. Chatting with my sister and creating little bits of art. Meeting new people and searching out various yoga studios and communities in Istanbul. I’ve even popped over to the Asian side for tea with expats like myself, women who fell in love with this place, set up businesses, married Turks (or not), and stayed. They all want to know what my plans are. And so do I, for that matter.
But not yet. I’m too busy taking it all in.
XX Melanie