Wifi with a mean spirit when feeling lonely

Mystery Meat

A strange package of marinated raw meat fell out of my luggage when I unzipped the cover/duffel bag around my backpack. Lucikly, my backpack was locked so the meat was just sitting inside the cover/duffel I use when I check the pack.

I was the only person in the baggage claim area when it happened; I’d returned to the airport to pick up my luggage from lost and found. There weren’t any customs agents around, so the woman who helped me retrieve the bag went looking for one, leaving me alone with my bag. I decided to get a head start by removing the cover so I could wear my pack instead of pushing it in a cart. Fwap! A package slid out onto the floor and thoughts of criminal activity rushed into my head: ‘Oh my god, did someone put drugs in my bag?’

My first thought was of the ‘Ganja Queen’, a women from Australia who is in prison for life in Indonesia for a huge bag of pot found in her boogie board bad when she arrived in Bali. There’s a documentary of her story and it’s very clear the drugs were placed in her luggage some time between checking it in and picking it up.

Thinking of her story when I saw the meat fall out of my bag (and at the time I had no idea what it was), I contemplated kicking it under a table or xray machine so as not to get into any trouble if it were an illicit substance. But then when I saw it appeared to be meat, marinated is some sort of potent-smelling herb (not pot), I waited for the lost and found woman to return with customs to see what would happen.

She returned without a customs inspector, who’d told her by phone to just let me go. Apparently it was not worth his time to come check the luggage of a single person. I showed her the mystery meat and her only response was, “I have never seen meat come out of someone’s bag.” And that was that. She told me she would feed it to a dog that was outside.

I cannot stop wondering who put the meat into my bag and what circumstances led someone to do it. What precipitated the thought, “Quick! Hide the meat!”?

Vacation is for Relaxing

24 hours of travel–the waiting, the lines, the way time passes when crossing borders and time zones, leaving you feeling confused and disoriented and time-less in a way because the familiar hours on the clock become meaningless; they are no longer a true reflection of time–at least your time. It’s been rearranged and modified to suit a different location. Arriving in Turkey in this state to lost luggage brought with it an immense feeling of heartache. Not only because of my tired, fragile state of mind but because there is no reward to finish the journey (if luggage can even be thought of as a reward). With lost luggage, the process of arriving drags on until the moment it’s retrieved. And the journey cannot begin, not truly, when you haven’t fully arrived.

24 hours, 4 airports, 3 flights (San Francisco to Paris to Istanbul to Bodrum), a handful of pitiful meals, and who knows how many thousands of miles, but no luggage. I tried not to be a baby about it–there’s no use in that. But despite an internal plea with myself to ‘brush it off’ I still felt an overwhelming amount of defeat. So I wasn’t feeling talkative in the car on the way to Bodrum, yet the driver persisted with questions in broken English–the sort of awkward conversation you have when traveling that take a while to go anywhere. It went something like this:

“Where are you from?”
“San Francisco… California…” My voice came out as a squeak as I’d just been feeling sorry for myself because of the stupid luggage.
“California,” he repeated, and then quietly asked something I couldn’t understand… (insert indecipherable question here)
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand; can you repeat that?”
“What do you do?”
“You mean for work? (not sure if this is what he meant, I paused for reaction. There was none.) I am a designer. Websites mostly.”
“Oh, websites.”

(strained silence)

“(insert indecipherable question here),” he spoke softly.
“Can you repeat that?” I leaned closer to the front seat to hear better, but that didn’t help the broken English.
“(repeat indecipherable question)”
“Say again?”
“How long will you stay here?”
“Oh… 2 nights in Bodrum. Then I’m going on a gullet (gull-et) for a week with a group of writers. It’s sort of a hobby, writing.”
“Gull-et? (perplexed)”
“Yes… you know, a boat… Is that the wrong pronunciation?”
“Goo-let,” he replied.

I thought he was making small talk to distract me from my obvious misery of arriving without luggage. And it worked. Soon I was so focused on holding a coherent conversation that thoughts of the impending doom of potentially leaving for a week-long sailing trip without luggage totally disappeared. But I know that about myself while traveling; I just need a distraction to stop my overactive imagination from conjuring ‘worst case scenarios’ that are rooted in an ever-growing and deep-seeded lack of trust in the airlines.

The driver pulled over at a gas station to buy a bottle of water.

“Would you like water? or soda?” he asked
“No thanks,” I replied, mostly for having nothing smaller than a 50 lira bill (equivalent to $40) and not wanting to be bothered.
“I am going to have water,” he stated, “are you sure you don’t want some?”
“I could actually use a beer,” I joked, “but that’s for later.”
“Please, have water,” he persisted with an imploring smile.
“OK, then. If it makes you happy.” I replied.

He returned from the shop with 2 bottles of water and on getting back into the car, asked if I would sit in the front seat. A little strange, I thought, but then again, I know a lot of people hate feeling like a chauffeur, even though in essence, that is what he was doing. Nonetheless, I gathered my things and got into the front seat figuring I might get a better view of my surroundings and perhaps I could stop asking him to repeat himself if there wasn’t so much distance between us.

“What is your name?” he asked.
“Cheryn. And yours?”
“Ekmed,” he replied, following up with, “How old are you?”
“Thirty-six. And you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“You have nice eyes,” he said after a moment.
“Thank you.”

(strained silence)

“Your boyfriend?” he asked, referring to the ring on my left hand.
“Yes.”
“Where is your boyfriend?”
“He’s at home. I am in Turkey to work… kind of… to work on my writing.”
“Is your boyfriend good?” he inquired.

I wasn’t sure what he was really asking. Perhaps he wanted to know if my boyfriend was doing well. Or how he felt about having to stay at home while I travel. Or if he was a good guy. Or if he behaves himself.” So I answered to cover all the bases, “Yes, he’s very healthy and wishes he could be here, but since I’m here to write on a boat with other writers, he would be bored. And he is a great guy all around. I am glad he is my boyfriend. Yes, he is good.”

Then Ekmed waved his hand obliquely, saying, “This is good.”

I thought perhaps he was referring to a scenic view (too bad it was dark outside), or a tasty restaurant nestled in the cluster of buildings on the shore running parallel to the highway. I asked, “It’s good? What is good?”

“This,” he replied, again waving his hand in a non-directional way that gave me the feeling he was referring to the interchange between us. Surely he could not have meant our conversation, broken and to-the-point as it was. But then again, as English is not his native tongue nor a fluent foreign tongue, perhaps it was a good conversation in his view, all things considered.

“(something undecipherable)… Turkish boyfriend?” he asked.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” I replied, fearing I did.
“(something undecipherable)… Turkish boyfriend?” he repeated.

The thought dawned on me that he was asking if I’d like a Turkish boyfriend, a vacation boyfriend, but I didn’t want to respond to that sort of question just in case he wasn’t. I didn’t want to look presumptuous or interested or put the idea in his head if it hadn’t been there already. I answered, “My boyfriend is not Turkish,” to be on the safe side.

He accepted this as an answer, probably figuring I didn’t understand, and put his hand out, palm up, with an expectant look on his face. “What?” I asked. And then he grabbed my hand, holding it in that intimate way with fingers interlaced. And there we were, driving down a rather deserted dark highway holding hands like teenagers on a first date. I thought to myself, ‘is this really happening?’ and then, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me…’.

“I think you should keep both hands on the wheel, ” I said, extricating my hand from his. “I don’t feel comfortable holding your hand.”

He looked a little wounded, and maybe a tad embarrassed, but not enough to refrain from asking for a kiss while pointing at a place on his cheek very very close to his lips. “No, I cannot kiss you,” I told him, “I have a boyfriend.” There are lots of other reasons why I wouldn’t kiss a 25-year-old taxi driver in a foreign country who I’ve just met, even if I were single, but there was no point in going into all of that.

“But vacation is for relaxing,” he replied as I were behaving like the ultimate stick-in-the-mud. He seemed to be honestly confused.

“You’re right,” I said to change the topic, “vacation IS for relaxing, and I’m stressed out about my missing luggage–I really should just chill out and worry about it tomorrow if it still doesn’t arrive.”

There was silence after this… awkward silence… (much better than awkward conversation and awkward come-ons) until Ekmed politely dropped me off at the hotel’s reception desk. Aside from being tired, irritable, and uninterested, I was mostly stunned at what had taken place. Aside from the fact that after 24 hours of travel without sleep, everything seems surreal, I haven’t been hit on like that by anyone, much less a 25-year-old, in a very long time. I couldn’t stop wondering if this is what traveling solo is like? My god, if Benjamin were with me on this trip, the two of them would be halfway to being drinking buddies by now and I’d be ignored in the back seat.

Later, as I recounted the experience to Robin, the woman who’s organized the writing workshop, she laughed and apologized for not warning me ahead of time. “Don’t sit in the front of the taxi,” she said, “it’s a signal that you’re interested in sex.” Apparently Turkey is like the reverse of Thailand–women come here for Turkish boyfriends. It reminds me of Bali Cowboys, who shack up with Western women on vacation looking for a little fun.

I lifted my glass of Raki (turkish liquor) to Robin and said, “Cheers – vacation is for relaxing!” We both had a good chuckle, and I’d forgotten all about my lost luggage.