My new place to document upon moving to LA…

if you follow me here, would you follow me there?

Just going out for dinner in Turkey can be difficult when you’re on your own. But that’s when the adventures happen you know…

There was a Starbucks on the corner, I spotted writing in English. Tempting. But you’re in Turkey, silly girl. No safe egg white spinach wraps here. Go find a kabob or something! Funny how all the menus are in another language, and no matter how big you smile and sound out “hello”, the waiters still don’t understand you. I saw pictures of falaffel at Koefteque on the corner, that was a good sign. One moment, ma’am, the waiter dashes inside and grabs another gentlemen. Hello! He speaks English!

Silly American girl, we’ll take care of you. He got me a table all of my own. An entire basket of bread, fresh yogurt, and a little meat pie. After helping me decipher the whole menu, he stood by my table and chatted away. I’m a “you can practice your English” magnet, which also means I get my own personal dinner companion. Score.

He told me stories of how he worked on a cruise ship for 10 years. He has  literally traveled the world. And, he had been to Norfolk! I said that’s near my school! He said he ate great lobster there. I said that’s where I ate Turkish food. Funny how it comes full circle.

He told me not to eat the green pepper, it would be too hot and I would cry.

He talked about all the ports he had stopped in, the thousands of people he had worked with and met. He has friends from all around the world. He’s been to Hawaii, New York, Miami, France, Norway, Finland, Italy, Greece- you name it. He’s been there. And now he’s standing at my table. Giving me Turkish tea to end my meal, as I tell him about my tea cup collection at home.

So just going out to dinner in Turkey can be difficult. But that only makes it 100x’s more rewarding.I was glad he decided to practice his English on me. I was beaming the entire walk home.

(I had left my camera at home- but this is a picture from their website of one of the appetizers he gave me. Puts pizza to shame)

Traveling, has been my dream. Maps littered across my room, journals of checklists with sights to see. So to actually be flying across the ocean, to have brunch in the London airport, press my nose against the airplane window for my first sight of Turkey’s Bosphorus. To land in a new country, get my passport stamped, walk through a door where I don’t hear English…

It’s so vindicating.

I am not just a dreamer
I am not a liar
I said I was going to do this, I said this is what I wanted, and it’s happening.
I am not a fraud

Traveling is hard though. Especially when you’re 19 and on your own. Literally knowing no one (and not one word of Turkish). It can be overwhelming and frustrating and lonely and terrifying. But it’s better then feeling safe. We have to realize that being uncomfortable is good. It’s where you grow.

2 days and I have grown, and what I have learned is: traveling is about relationships. People. not the location, the sights, the sounds, the monuments (no matter how incredible they may be). It is easy to travel just for pictures (says the Cinema-TV major). It is easy to travel for the image (look at her! she travels the world). But it is empty and meaningless if you travel across the world to get pictures you could find on Google.

Traveling is about the people that you meet, the stories that you hear, the relationships that you make, and the uncomfortable situations you put yourself in.

My mind is expanding as I am absorbing stories from mostly women of all ages. I’m hearing stories of their travels, relationships, families, and jobs. I’m hearing about their hurts, their struggles, their accomplishments, their downfalls. Last night I sat at the kitchen table at 1am with my Turkish “mother”, talking over a bowl of cherries about everything from our philosophy on children and education to how she and her husband first met. I had dinner with a girl I had never met in person before but who felt like my older sister within minutes- she gave me a snippet of her life story with enough life lessons to feed me for weeks.

How lucky am I that I get to learn from these lives already lived? My entire outlook and context for life only broadens with each conversation I have. I already felt this in America with the many women I feel like I have learned from (it’s why I really just love moms). But when you take that concept around the world? It only becomes more diverse. People and the world. They are complex, layered, and so much bigger then we realize. It makes me want to shriek, why do we ever limit ourselves when we could be constantly learning and exploring!?

A camera and a checklist could never do that. My dream, seeing the Eiffel tower, could never do that. Because that is not traveling. Traveling is so much more valuable than that.

People, relationships, combined with new experiences, culture.
That is traveling.
And it is empowering. It is invigorating. It is life.

That is why I have been so drawn to travel. I now realize I just wanted to see more of life. I knew it was bigger, I just wanted to be a witness.