Home again home again

I'm tired. I think my capacity for long distance travel has dwindled. Or maybe it's because I spent the last 24 hours on planes or in airports, a great percentage of that time in bathrooms. One thing that the Frankfurt airport lacks is bathrooms.

On Monday morning I woke in Hasankeyf. I had arrived the day before from Mardin to see the remnants of the village perched on a stone cliff. The village was small, the setting pictaresque. On the banks of the Tigris river at the foot of the cliff, restaurants had set up stalls in the water where you could eat your lunch while soaking your feet in the current. After checking into my hotel I did just that, soaking up the atmosphere from the cradle of civilization.

It took only another hour or two to climb the rocks and look into the cave dwellings and structures up above. Later in the afternoon I walked across the banks to look at the honey colored stone and the palace positioned right on the edge of precipice. It was worth the side trip. Doubly so as the entire site is slated to vanish under the waters of the GAP dam project.

Last night after a day spent in Diyarbakir, I sat in the courtyard of the Keravanseri hotel and drank my last cup of Turkish çay. The fountain bubbled over watermellon slices placed within, no doubt in reference to the town's watermellon festival. And the watermellon is very fine. Deniz had told me that over the past four nights they had hosted four weddings and that she had been up until at least two every night. She was tired.

I asked her about chikkofte, a dish we were served when we were in Sanliurfa, and she confirmed my worst suspicions. The dish was made from raw meat, wet bulgher wheat, and Urfa peppers. The guide book had specifically warned against eating raw meat in that part of the country for the heat of the plains quickly spoils the food. Deniz told me that it was an appetizer and a speciality. I was disappointed I couldn't appreciate it. In the end, it set both Ed and I up for gastrointestinal nightmares.

I asked for the check as the call to prayer sounded. The waiter looked at me and looked at the tea and shook his head. He waved his hands in front of his body and walked away. I thanked him and said goodbye to Deniz. She told me that from her hotel the cab fare would be 15 million Turkish lire and no more (the equivalent of $10US). I thanked her.

The taxi drove along the basalt walls, illuminated by spotlights. Children played in the park and along the crevasses. Away from the walls, the car plunged into darkened roads as it wound its way to the airport. I was still an hour early. The waiting room filled with smoke. When we finally boarded and left for Istanbul, the child behind me woke and either cried or clambored over my seat for the two hour duration of the flight. I arrived in Istanbul at midnight.

I had five and a half hours to wait in the Istanbul airport. Almost everything was closed. The Lufthansa ticket counter opened two hours prior to boarding. I checked my bags and once past the passport control found a lachmacun restaurant and had the most expensive one I had had in the country, followed by expensive baklava. The plane boarded and it was three hours to Frankfurt.

I had another three hours to kill in the airport. When I was in Diyarbakir I whiled away the afternoon at a movie theatre. I had debated seeing The Terminal but knew I would be seeing enough of airports. I opted for Riddick. When we finally boarded for New York I was in a daze. I had already been up for over 24 hours and my stomach was giving me grief. As the plane took off down the runway I counted the minutes until the seatbelt sign gave way, and at the first sign of passengers moving about the cabin I moved.

I arrived in New York at around 1pm local time, 8pm in Turkey. The day was cool but overcast, a portent of the hurricane to come. I asked the cab driver how things had been and he said they were pleasant. En route to my house he stopped by the gas station where the attendant, cell phone stuck to his ear, filled his car up with regular instead of super.

Back in New York it seems that I've been gone more than just three weeks. Two new construction projects are quickly rising on Houston, their facades a blot on the neighborhood. The seasons have changed. Winter looms.

At customs, the woman was listening to a Prince album. I asked her if she had seen him at MSG. She became excited. She said she bought tickets for her mother and aunt but didn't go herself. But she's heard such great things that she's trying to get tickets for California or Philadelphia. Anywhere, she said. She'll travel. Posted by eku at September 14, 2004 4:12 PM