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Who we'd stayed with in Thessaloniki I cannot say. I don't rightly remember, but it was someone through couchsurfing. Maybe the girl who liked to talk philosophy. The one with only one room where all five of us slept. Or maybe not, as I said, I'm not sure. It was fall and the weather was getting more mild. It was no longer a sweltering heat during the day and the nights could get cool sometimes. What I remember most about the city is the White Tower of Thessaloniki. Not really impressive, but the only feature that distinguishes that city from the others I'd seen so far. I remember laying on the grass near a statue with Jake, Jess, and Georgie, eating a loaf of brown bread we'd bought from a bakery around the corner for a euro. We were chatting about what to do and where to go next. Georgie was set on going to Turkey and no one else objected to the idea, so it was a no brainer. I didn't know anything about Turkey. To be quite honest, like most countries I visited on this little jaunt, it was a place I'd never given much thought to, but Georgie had. And that was it, simple as could be, we all decided to leave for Istanbul the next day.
We woke before the sun had risen and made our way sleepily out of the philosophy girls house (I do believe it was her that we stayed with after all) to a public bus where I deciphered the schedule, and shot us in the direction we needed to head. That direction was out, out of the city, and to whatever major highway that would take us to Turkey. We made our way fairly close to where we needed to be. We actually missed our stop, but seeing as it was the second to last stop we stayed on the short distance to the end of the line and rode backwards to where we needed to be. Even so, it was still a half mile walk to the highway.
Once at the highway we followed the small chainlink fence blocking us until we found a hole we could get under with our packs. It didn't take us long. Once in, we walked past a small farm with a turkey and some goats and I remember thinking it funny that there were actual turkeys in Turkey. At that point we turned perpendicular to the turkey pen and trudged up the small hill that the highway was built upon. At the top we all made a decision. The game plan: We'd hitch in twos, I with Georgie and Jake with Jess, and we'd all meet at Gokan's (the couchsurfer Georgie'd set up for us four) that night. Alright team, break. Me and Georgie gave Jake and Jess the head start. We let them stand in front of us on the highway. How is that a head start? Well, what basically always happens with hitching is the car pulls off behind you on the road. What that meant, with Jake and Jess to our backs, was that even if a car did pull over because of me and Georgie the car would stop closer to Jake and Jess, thus essentially giving them our ride. It was nearly impossible for us to get a ride first, so it wasn't surprising when a cement truck, at the sight of me and Georgie, pulled over for Jake and Jess first. Me and Georgie knew it'd be so, and we were watching them load up before we'd really give it a go. We waved goodbye and they were waving at us when we heard a honk behind us. Both of us gave a little start because we were both watching Jake and Jess load. We didn't expect the horn behind us. We turned to see a sedan sitting in wait for us. Super excited to have also gotten a ride, we hurried over and got in. Our driver zoomed past Jake and Jess before the cement truck had even left the shoulder. Our driver gave a couple honks and we waved as we passed them, hearing the deep grunt of the truck honking in reply.
Now how it happened. As I remember it, we got 10 rides during that day. 8 of which were in Greece and 2 (sort of) in Turkey. Every ride in Greece was a short one. Yet it still didn't take long to get to the Turkish border. Basically every ride we got took us 20 kilometers down the road to the next town where we'd be thumbin' it for maybe 10 minutes before someone'd pull off for us. Now, it isn't how many rides we got that day that made this day incredible to me. Not at all. The first ride we got was that sedan, and the man, I remember, was not what you'd call well off. Older and wrinkled, he smoked the whole way and tried to talk to us a little bit. The ride wasn't long though and we were soon standing on the side of the road when we saw a familiar cement truck driving up. We waved at Jake and Jess as the drove by and their driver gave another honk. Soon after, we got another ride in a different sedan. This man was on his way to work, wearing a full suit and speaking perfect English. While with him we passed Jake and Jess on the side of the road, as they'd done to us, and gave 'em a honk. Over and over again this kept happening. They'd pass us, we'd pass them, it was a huge game of leapfrog. And it was so much freaking fun. At one point we were all four again at the same spot hitching. Me and Georgie got the honors this time and took the first car, only to be quickly passed by Jake and Jess in the speeding sports car they'd got. I remember one lady who picked us up was on her way to a birthday party and I sat most of the way holding the cake in my lap. Then, later in the day, when we were almost to the Turkish border, me and Georgie were crammed into the cab of a small two seater pickup hauling watermelons when we saw Jake and Jess on the side of the road again. We, like every other time, got super excited. We were waving at 'em and rolled down the window to yell at them when our driver realized we knew them and pulled off to the shoulder, quickly coming to a stop. Jake and Jess run up with huge smiles on their faces, we all get out laughing, and then they're on top of the watermelons in the back if the truck, with me and Georgie still in the cab, we're all on our way to Turkey. I'd never experienced anything as fun as that in my entire life, it was amazing and beautiful and inspiring all at once. I couldn't believe we could get so many rides from strangers when we didn't even speak the language! They were all so kind and the whole matter was only enhanced by the comical passing and being passed by Jake and Jess nearly every half hour. Whatever I do in life, wherever I may go, that day is going to live on with me forever. But I haven't even told you the whole of it yet, so let me continue.
All four of us had made it to the border in this watermelon truck and it was only four in the afternoon. Somehow I find it an unlikely circumstance that we'd all be here at the same time and it's all the more fun because of it. We all wave goodbye to the watermelon man and start walking towards the border only to get stopped on the Greek side. It takes a minute or two to find someone who speaks English and we learn you can't cross the border on foot. Well alright, that's fine. We all wait on the Greek side of the border with our thumbs out. It always takes longer to get a ride when you're crossing a border. I think it's because people are more hesitant to take strangers into another country than they would be if it were just down the road. Law enforcement always makes people nervous. It took almost an hour of going car to car to truck to bus with our passports out to show we weren't trying to sneak across before Jake and Jess finally secured a ride for themselves. Me and Georgie were happy for them, but we were worried. It was getting late. A little after five, and it'd probably get dark around eight meaning we only had three hours hitching to get to Istanbul. It was still a ways away. As we watch Jake and Jess drive through the first checkpoint a car pulls up beside us. Inside we found an older family (I say older because the youngest was older than I) that were so nice to us, though they spoke not a lick of English. We started negotiating with them as soon as we were in the car using hand motions and names of towns. I pulled out my map and they pointed to the first town inside of Turkey, Keş (or something like that, I'd have to look at a map to be certain). We all quickly agreed that that was fine, we were headed in that direction and so the car started forward. The first checkpoint, the one getting you out of Greece, was no problem. It was a long ways to the second, at least a mile, where we would have to be allowed into Turkey. The drive between borders seemed barren, there was nothing around and soon you could see the white star and moon on a red background waving over the entrance to Turkey. I hadn't even thought that maybe I wouldn't be let in... But all we had to do was buy a 15 euro 90 day tourist visa and we were good to go. Georgie's had cost 20 euros because she is from Australia and it really rifled her feathers a bit. This is where we found Jake and Jess again. Their car and ours were held up at this crossing for a second while we bought visas. Jess tried to buy hers in lira, the Turkish currency, but they only accepted euros here. We all agreed it stupid that you couldn't buy a Turkish visa with the Turkish currency. But she found an ATM that put out euros. And, just like that, another badge of honor was stamped into my passport. Then we, in our two seperate cars, were all on our way. We'd gotten into Turkey!
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Let's pause and take a break here for a second. I know this one is going on for a while and there're no photos to soften it (I cannot upload photos with my current connection in Alaska, otherwise I would). There're two more main parts to this story. Mehmet and Gokan. Mehmet is the key to this story. To me he is the most important part because he is the one who made a lasting impression. He is the one who, no matter what, I can look back on and have faith in humanity again. Through the short time I knew him he taught me so much and I can never repay him for that. All to be explained.
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Once over the border the difference in the land was stark. Turkey was brown, the fields over plowed and barren where Greece had been green and fertile. I was shocked at the difference between countries. Jake and Jess made their own way and us ours. We didn't end up seeing them again until late that night when they made it into Istanbul. Me and Georgie rode for a little ways with our family and were dropped at a circular intersection in the middle of Keş. Little did we know at this point of the adventure, we'd be dropped at this intersection twice more during our roam of Turkey. We thanked our family and walked to where we thought would be a good spot. I started to put my thumb out and, before it was even up in the air, Mehmet came to a hard stop beside us in his truck. It was like a moving truck, and he was transporting food of some kind. He was a short man with dark hair who enjoyed smoking. We climbed into his truck without a second thought. He was overly enthusiastic about everything and insanely happy to have us as his guests. Before we'd even gotten out of the town he'd bought four pretzels from a boy selling them on the street, two for me and two for Georgie. I was already impressed because you could tell he doesn't make much money. I mean he's a trucker in Turkey for God's sake. He lives in his truck and it looked like he's been wearing his clothes for about as long as I'd been wearing mine. He didn't speak much English. 10 words tops, but he still talked to us the whole time and, regardless that we didn't quite understand each other, we all had some damn good laughs during the ride. We learned about güzelle (if I can spell) and the upside down pinching motion that accompanied it. It kind of means something is beautiful. And it was beautiful. The whole experience was beautiful. At some point during the ride we deciphered that Mehmet was telling us it would get dark soon. It was true enough, we could see by the sky outside, but what of it? He mimed that he wasn't going all the way to Istanbul and that no one would pick us up after dark. We knew this to be true as well, but what could we do? And so we assured him it would be alright and we'd just get out wherever he was going, so we all continued down the road like a road trip between friends.
After it was dark and we finally stopped, me and Georgie didn't know where exactly we were. Looking back now, we must've been in Çorlu. We were planning on trying to hitch in the dark because we were only an hour away from Istanbul, but Mehmet had different plans for us. He'd tried to call his trucker friends to see if any were going into the city, but no one was. So he sat us down in front of this building and had us wait there. After about 5 minutes he came back with some Turkish çay and left us. I'd never had anything like it before, but it is probably my second favorite thing in the world now. It was everything I'd ever dreamed of. Another five minutes later Mehmet came back and sat with us for half an hour talking to us. It's funny how much you can get across when you don't speak someones language. All of a sudden a bus pulled up out front and stopped with a hiss. It opened its doors and Mehmet shooed us onto it. Now this wasn't a cheap bus either. This thing had wi-fi, TV's in every chair, and it was roomy too. I was awestruck, not by the bus, but by the fact that Mehmet would spend his money on all this for us. The pretzels, the çay, and now this? Who was this guy? I just know he was dirt poor, yet he was going more than out of his way to help us beyond anything I'd ever expected. He even tried to give us some lira as we loaded up, but we denied it. I almost wanted to cry at how beautiful this was. Here I was, in a foreign country, where I didn't speak the language, where this guy knew nothing of who I was or anything about me or what I do, and yet, he was doing everything in his power to help. And he expected nothing from me in return. I had nothing to give him in return, and I was sad about it. But! But wait! Right before the bus closed its door I rushed to the front. I'd found an ash tray in the dirt in Greece. It was golden (doubtfully real gold, but possibly) and inlaid with colorful tiles depicting a ship with a square sail on the ocean. This I had fallen in love with because I thought it beautiful, and this is what I gave to Mehmet in return for his kindness. Not nearly enough, but it was what I had then. And then we were gone. I hope he still uses that ash tray. I should ask him, we still talk on facebook after all.
The trip into Istanbul was beautiful. We shared our enthusiasm about what'd just happened, but soon we both just sat back and relaxed. We were tired from the long day hitching. I'd lost my headphones traveling. But there was a pair that came with the seat. I plugged them into my phone and played Nuvole bianche, a piano piece that Jake had introduced me to. He'd told me if he listened to it enough it makes him want to cry. And I do agree, but it's beautiful. That is why Nuvole bianche is forever tied to my heart and it will always take me back in time, to a place where I'd experienced humanity. With the soft sound of a piano masterfully played I quickly nodded off for the short bus ride into Istanbul, a city I never expected to see.
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This isn't how the day ended. There is more to it, but I feel as if I've written enough for one post. Maybe I'll finish this night next time. Maybe I'll move on to my favorite Turkish moments. Or maybe not. But to write it how I would like to it'd turn into a book, instead of a blog. Though it may not seem important to you, this was the best day of my life, and it had a massive influence on the person I am today. I remember that day fondly and though it seems like I wrote a lot, it's not even all of it. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a million wouldn't be enough to satisfy me with how I've written this day. I can say I tried, and I can almost certainly say I'll try it again one day. But for now... That'll do pig. That'll do.
To anyone who read this entire thing through, thank you, you're incredible, and I appreciate it.
Be happy,
Beacon
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