Beyond Expectations

There's this weird mixed feeling of excitement and jitters when you come to the realization that you decided to try a venture you know nothing of. Despite all the uncertainty, You Only Live Once (YOLO) seemed to have engraved itself in my mind. That was me in April of 2021 in the midst of a pandemic.

I had decided that my days off work this time round wouldn't be spent touring my house whose corners I had mastered since #stayhome was the in thing now. Instead I take up the offer to visit an old friend in what for me would be one of least places on my list for a holiday destinations.

Days approaching my trip I would be asked questions like, Why there? Why don't you go to this place instead and such as comments. Which to some of these opinions I didn't mind and to others I'd give my silent monologue answer like; Maybe if you were paying for it then I might give it a listen but since it's my wallet that's going to be damaged then the trip stands. Despite my mind being made up I was still a-bit disinclined to the idea of traveling during a pandemic. In as much as a daily commute in Istanbul is almost equivalent to a day trip to another city in some other part of the world, it still doesn't set you up for actual travel scenarios. I didn't really know what to expect and what was expected of me in-terms of traveling requirements. Given that everyday there's always a new regulation being put in place and even after doing my homework and checking out my list. I still found my self calling the airline to confirm that I could travel without any issues since there were speculations of another extended lockdown. Something that interestingly has become part and parcel of us and a story I will be reinventing to my future younger relatives as a way of convincing them that they have it easier. Gone are the days you looked forward to the weekend to plan a getaway because Tuesday or Thursday might just as well be a weekend all thanks to the lockdowns now. It's rather tasking to have to adjust oneself to a changing world and one part of this adjustment is understanding that there's more to what we think we know.

So here I was all packed and ready to get away from the usual routine I call my life and into something out of the ordinary. I was so ready for this trip that I checked in the night before my flight, got to the airport early and despite all my preparations I somewhat managed to almost miss my flight. Why and how you may ask? Well you see, It had been so long since I traveled that I literally forgot or more like disregarded just how massive the new or not so new Istanbul Airport was. Considering that it's expected to be the largest airport in the world was something I totally had not put to thought. I had about 10 minutes to the boarding time but here I was comfortably sitting at the front part of the airport instead of going through passport control and to the other side. Little did I know that it would take me another 5 minutes of walking (If I had crossed over at the right time) to get to the boarding area of the airport.

I am no runner but here I was trying my best to Hussain bolt my way to the boarding point. The red sign on the screen monitor that read NOW BOARDING, the automated like lady voice that was making THE LAST CALL, my back pack which at the moment felt like a sack of potatoes didn't help with the situation but only made me more nervous. You know the scene in the movie where the guy frantically runs as fast as he can to catch the girl before she gets on the plane. Yeah that was me but there was nothing romantic about the way I was running. Thanks to my short but swift legs I made it, barely breathing though .It's one thing to walk in this unfashionable must have accessory called the mask and a another whole different thing to run in it. One more reason why this whole pandemic is a curse, the very thing that is meant to reduce prevention from a disease that may result to shortness of breath almost suffocated me.

Moral of the story running at the airport is nothing like in the movies especially with a mask on. The up side is that I made it to the plane and was off to the my new adventure Şanlıurfa.

As I settled into my seat and slowly got my self to a normal breathing pace, the passenger besides me decided it was time for small talk. He asked me where and why I was going with an undertone of Turkish friendliness and What business does someone like you have there. Just like my friends, he too was wondering why of all the places I could travel to I chose Urfa. Well the short answer to that would be; if it's a place I've never been to before and I have peace about it then it's worth going. Yet again there's a lot to be considered when someone decides on something and most of the time the reasons are very much subjective. After an hour and a half of cruising in the air and witnessing breath taking sceneries of God's art work we arrived and now it was time for the second leg of my journey. Getting to my friends home, which was fairly easy to find given her house was enroute the main road to the city center.

I arrived on a Friday and that meant that my weekend would be spent indoors considering we were in a time frame of a nation wide weekend lockdowns. Either way #stayhome worked just fine for the introverted me who after some time of being around crowds of people I needed to recharge and a weekend indoors with my girl friends would be the perfect way to do so. We immersed ourselves into different forms of self care ranging from a Saturday Skincare Session, in-depth conversations and cooking. Cooking which was mostly done by Sarah, a chef in the making especially if I say so because thanks to her mouth watering food I might have gained a few kgs in a span of two days. The weekend experience was a start of me realizing that my decision of coming to Urfa was exactly what I needed. That it wasn't about the fame of the place, it's significance to the world or to people, enough to make it to the must go destination list. It was more of the feel the place had. To me Urfa was a place of solace, a call back to the basics to things that actually matter.

Then came Monday, when we had planned to go visit the touristic areas of the city. We first made our way to the hill side thanks to my local tour guides / friends. Where for the first time I felt like I was in the part of the world called the Middle East. My time in Turkey has mostly been spent in Istanbul, a cultural melting pot city, and Turkey being situated at the crossroads of Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, and eastern Mediterranean this makes it a bit hard to place exactly where you are in the world. Standing at the hill top looking over the alignment and architecture of the houses came placidity which gave me a sense of nostalgia I don't ever remember having and I guess I wouldn't have experienced anywhere else.

We did a-lot of walking since everything we wanted to see was more or less in the same vicinity which came easy for me because well, as an Istanbul resident one becomes accustomed to walking long distances. At the end of the city tour we came a cross some locals who seemed to be enjoying the view and the evening breeze. At the sight of us one of them asked my friend Gloria, the only one amongst us who speaks Kurdish if they could take a picture with me. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to because I was a-bit hesitant as to what their intentions were. Was it so the could say that they saw a dark skinned person and here is a picture as the evidence?. Not wanting to delve too much into what their reasons might have been I snap myself out of the meaningless questioning and just went with it. Besides maybe I was the first "black" person they had ever come across, so it was up to me to represents and to do so with dignity. So I got in the middle of the group of ladies and created a memory. One that hopefully meant something but even though it didn't, in our paths crossing one can only hope that their experience of meeting someone unfamiliar was pleasing because it was for me and that's all that mattered.

Then came Tuesday, when we had planned to go for a picnic by the Euphrates river in the small farming district of Halfeti. A trip that had me exited because I couldn't wait to see and experience what I had only read about in books. So we loaded up the rental car and hit the road something that I must say I should do more often because the feel of cruising through a mostly empty road and hills gave me such a soothing feel. We jammed to my friends' Spotify playlist with everyone playing the DJ turn by turn as we sang along to the parts of the song we knew. On our way there the weather seemed to be turning on us as it threatened to rain with little drizzles. As we drove along I became a-bit disgruntled because of the false predictions from the "trustable" weather app. The day before it showed sunny and now here came the rain. Either way we were already half way to our destination and there was no turning back now .

Thank goodness luck was on our side because when we got there it had stopped and the picnic plan went on. We found a quite place by the river, laid out our picnic mat to enjoy our sand-witches and the serenity of the flowing water. While my friends read their books and journaled I wandered along the river side trying to take in the tranquility of the moment. Yes! This point in time, Me, the River and the Mountains surrounding was why it had to be Şanlıurfa. All the answers to the questions of why I choose to go to this city lay in this very moment, I honestly didn't know what awaited me in this small city in South Eastern - Turkey but what I do know is that is exceeded all my expectation in such a splendid way.

It isn't really about what I expect but about what happens despite my expectation that makes it all worth while.