The Middle East turns sane people crazy and crazy people crazier. I have never dropped acid, but the past year and a half of living in this part of the world, I feel like I’ve been on a very long acid trip. Weird things just happen here.
My latest adventures took me to Russia and Turkey. I assumed that Russia would be full of entertaining anecdotes, and it was. I thought a man was going to steal my suitcase and he didn’t, I hung out with some Americans taking acting classes in St. Petersburg, I went to a fabulous ballet, spent time in impressive museums, watched bridges separate, turned 33, wandered wide-eyed through a palace, the Kremlin and the world’s fanciest metro, enjoyed living with an adorable, young Russian couple for four days, and basked in the beauty of a free country. I could combine all the stories taking place in that incredible week, but it still wouldn’t add up to the entertainment value of almost any given day I spent in Turkey.
I spent a week in Turkey as a solo female traveler. I know. Crazy. The best way to describe what that feels like is to imagine trying to crawl through a kennel full of puppies. You’re not gonna get hurt, but you need to deal with a lot of noise, playfulness and pawing before you emerge with your massive headache. After my sixth day I was ready to curl up in the fetal position and never do anything stupid again, so I spent almost all of my final day in Turkey in my expensive Istanbul hotel room, gladly paying top dollar for self-imposed solitary confinement.
The last day I spent in Capadoccia was the oversized dollop of icing on the cone-shaped birthday cake. I enjoy icing almost exclusively in small doses, and this time was no exception.
Capadoccia is a quirky part of Turkey that looks like it’s made out of petrified meringue. The first two days were pretty cool, filled with meeting both tourists and locals, checking out the scenery and exploring the small town of Goreme. Everything went more or less as expected, but the third day put an end to that.
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