All posts tagged Hapless Travelling Stories

  • A Turkish Brazilian Wax Gone Wrong

    beauty-2016-01-sex-and-the-city-bikini-wax-main

    Today before work I ran over to the hamam to get my lower body waxed, an activity I choose to do there because it is cheap, close by, and has hygiene standards no worse than I’ve seen in any other Turkish salon. BUT, as I’ve written before, the affordability of the service does come at a cost, which is the hamamgoers complete and utter lack of inhibition. Take today for example. I enter the hamam, ask to be waxed, am handed slippers and key to a locker where I may put my purse, than beckoned over to the waxing room and told to have a seat.

    Except there was already somebody in there.

    A naked somebody.

    A somebody who was, at that very moment, getting the hair waxed off her vagina.

    A woman in her late sixties, I’m guessing, casually getting a Brazilian wax. In front of me.

    Nobody else seemed to think this was awkward, so I sat down obediently while Brazilian waxer and waxee gossiped about godknowswhat and I studiously attempted to keep my eyes away from the danger zone.

    It must be said, before I continue, that in Turkey it is quite normal for a woman in her sixties to be getting a Brazilian wax. In fact, in Turkey having a clean pubic area is considered – and I quote – “a matter of basic hygiene.” So it was not the age of the woman in front of me that surprised me or made me uncomfortable, but the part where she spread her legs to get her butthole waxed?

    Maaaaybe a little.

    Before long there was a cry of “hadi bakalim!” which signaled the end of the Brazilian wax in front of me. The erstwhile waxee rose, adjusted her stomach, and sailed out the door. It was my turn.

    At this point, at the risk of oversharing, I should state that I am also a Brazilian wax-subscriber, and have been since the first time I got waxed in Turkey and asked my waxer to leave the bikini area alone only to have her look at me like I had two heads. So I shrugged, thought, “When in Constantinople…” and succumbed the next time to enduring the most painful beauty process known to man short of surgery.

    So, one of the other reasons why I like this hamam for my waxing is that the waxer is a veritable Brazilian speed-demon. I have seriously never had a less painless Brazilian than at her hands, and there is no bleeding or anything. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a miracle.

    There are two downsides to getting waxed by a Brazilian speed-demon in a room with an open door at a local hamam where people hang around naked and have no inhibitions. One is that anybody can walk in the door at any time, usually nude or nearly-nude. The second is that there is no opportunity to hold the skin taut because there are literally milliseconds between each rip of the wax strip. Because it’s a lot less painful than a customary Brazilian wax, I have learned to let this go.

    However, not everybody feels the same way.

    Midway through the wax, another woman sailed through the door in order to ask about getting a massage and saw me naked from the waist down on the table in the middle of a tornado of hair being ripped from my groin. She, it is fair to say, was not pleased with what she saw and started yelling at the waxer.

    “What are you doing?! Her skin is pasty like mine! If you do it without pulling the skin it will get red! You need to pull it! What are you doing?! Don’t do it like that!”

    The waxer responded in similarly raised tones. “It’s alright! No problem! She’s fine! Look, almost all the hair is gone already!”

    The new client did not take no for an answer, strode to the other side of the bed, and yelled again. “You have to hold her skin! Otherwise it will hurt her!”

    Then she paused for a moment as she realized I had been mute the whole time. “Do you understand Turkish?”

    I nodded, but was too shocked to formulate a response.

    My mistake. The new woman took the burden of relieving me of my ability to choose, and helpfully reached down and held my vagina skin for me.

    An unauthorized stranger touching my vagina helped jar me into action. I helpfully replaced my her hand with mine so that she would know that I would henceforth take better care of my nether-regions. She nodded approvingly, made another comment about how white my skin is and how I’d better not get it red, and went to sit in the courtyard.

    When I left she was still sitting there, and wished me Iyi Bayramlar (happy holidays for the end of Ramadan.) I responded in kind, because how the hell else do you respond? “Bye bye random vagina-touching lady! Hope to see you again never! Anyway, it’s all smooth down there and not too red, thanks. Okay, uh, see you! Bye!”

    And that, my friends, is the story of my Turkish Brazilian wax, and all I can say to conclude this festival of overshare is iyi bayramlar to you too, and I wish you a lifetime of no unwanted body hair.

  • You might not believe me if I told you this, but I’m not a spy.

    I’ve been asked if I am a spy a few times since I entered the post-Soviet world. It’s the fact that I’m a North American who speaks Russian that seems to inspire this question. Never mind that I don’t spend time with anybody who could be a remotely useful source of intelligence. The warning sensors start blinking as soon as a fully formed Russian sentence falls out of my mouth.

    Mostly when people ask they are half-joking. What would I say if I actually were a spy? “Oh snap, you caught me! I was just plying you with vodka so that later I could seduce you and ask you sensitive national-security-related questions during post-coital pillow talk, but you’ve totally blown my cover. More vodka?”

    Usually I say, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” Then I laugh and tell them the truth – actually, I’m not a spy. I’m simply a North American who learned Russian because it’s difficult to communicate in the post-Soviet space without it.

    Yesterday I finally made it to Russia, crossing the border from Georgia to the Russian Caucasus en route to Vladikavkaz. I was expecting that there might be some trouble at the border because I have 12 Turkish stamps on my passport.

    If you haven’t been following the news, Russia and Turkey are locked in a war about whose president has a bigger penis. Turkey shot down a Russian jet, probably by mistake. Then Turkish president Erdogan didn’t apologize and claimed the plane was in Turkish airspace. In response, Russia imposed numerous economic sanctions against Turkey. The most important of these is that Russian travel agencies have been ordered to quit selling travel packages to Russians, and that Turkish citizens have been barred from travelling in Russia visa-free.

    This is horrible because it means that virile Turkish men have been denied their supply of foreign blonde women to hit on.

    On a more serious note, as Russia is one of Turkey’s main suppliers of tourists, this stupid contest is potentially devastating for the Turkish  tourism/hotel industry, and not that great for Russian travel agencies either.

    None of that has anything to do with me, but I wasn’t prepared to underestimate any possibility. I had money ready to pay a bribe if needed. I learned how to say that I thought Erdogan was compensating for his deficiencies below the belt in Russian.

    All in vain, as it turned out. I arrived at the Georgian border where the Georgian border officer quickly checked over my Russian visa and then wished me “good luck.” “Good luck?” I thought. “Am I going to need it?”

    A few minutes later, I was at the Russian passport window. “Zdrasvitse,” said the woman. “Zdrasvitse,” I said.

    It became clear almost immediately that she spoke no English, not even English directly related to her job. She took my passport, then started asking me questions in Russian. Where are you going? How long will you be in Russia? Is it your first time here?

    “Yes,” I said, in Russian. “It’s my first time.”

    “Well how do you know how to speak Russian then?” she asked. Then she picked up the phone. “We have somebody who is coming to Russia for the first time here,” she said into the receiver. “Please come quickly.”

    She motioned to the side of her office. “Wait there.”

    She still had my passport, so I waited obediently. It was a few degrees below zero; my breath hung in the air and my nose turned pink.  A crowd of other officials was standing two metres away from me. One of them looked at me incredulously and said, “Lady! What are you doing waiting there?!”

    “She told me to.”

    Finally, another official showed up. We exchanged zdrasvitses. He was baby-faced, maybe 21 or 22. He was also a few inches shorter than I. It was clear that he didn’t speak English either.

    “So where are you going?” he asked unsmilingly. “Right now, Vladikavkaz, and after that Moscow,” I said. “Who are you staying with?” “In Vladikavkaz, a hostel, but in Moscow, with a friend.” “What’s the friend’s name?”

    I didn’t know her last name, just had her first name, number and contact info. I showed him our Skype conversations.

    “Where did you learn Russian? Why do you know how to speak Russian?”

    I started to get frustrated, standing out there in the cold being asked stupid questions. “Well you little whippersnapper you,” I wanted to say, “you may not be aware that it is actually not easy to travel in the post-Soviet Union and not speak Russian. This situation is a case in point since you and the other 20 people working here don’t appear to speak any English at all. As you can clearly see from the stamps on my passport which you are holding, this is my fourth post-Soviet country. Doesn’t it stand to reason that it is NOT AT ALL WEIRD that I speak Russian?! Also, like nearly everybody else who has ever learned a second language in adulthood, I took classes with a teacher. What are you expecting me to say? ‘Oh hello, yes, I studied Russian in spy academy and as we all know, there is just so much going on in the dusty hamlet of Vladikavkaz that I just need to go there and spy on what’s going on.”’

    That’s not actually what I said. I explained again how I learned Russian, showed him the relevant passport stamps, and a few minutes later he appeared to give up and sent me on my way. It was, by far, the most bizarre and intense border crossing I have ever experienced.

    Later that night at the hostel, one of my hostel-mates asked me, “Kate, if it’s not a secret, how do you know how to speak Russian?”

    I said, “It’s not a secret. I’m a spy.” We all laughed.

    Here are some pictures of the spying I’ve been doing in Vladikavkaz.

    Vladikavkaz Train Station

    Boss, this is the Vladikavkaz train station. You might also want to know that trains leave and arrive from here, and that usually these trains are carrying people who speak Russian.

    Planet Lux

    Boss, should I ever need to stay in Vladikavkaz again, do you think you could set me up with a room in this hotel? It promises luxury, and I know it must be true because they’ve decided to write everything in Latin letters. I know I get to gather more information in hostels, but one night wouldn’t kill the spy budget, would it? C’mon. Hook a sister up.

    Vladikavkaz Cinema

    Although the Soviet Union was built on the ideas of a guy who said that religion was the opiate of the masses, cinema might actually be the opiate of Vladikavkazians. I think I also saw a strip club. Now you know, foreign governments. Now you know.

  • The Armenian Sparkling Water Machine

    This is a picture of a sparkling water machine.

    S;

     

    A sparkling water machine is an immensely satisfying device that provides instantaneous sparkling water in a variety of flavours from plain to fruity and sugary.

    To operate a sparkling water machine, simply insert a small coin worth approximately 25 cents, and press the button to choose what kind of sparkling water is tickling your fancy. Change is not possible, so if you don’t have a smaller coin, prepare to either drink lots of water or pay one forward to the next thirsty traveller.

    Once coins are inserted, press one of the buttons. A cup will fall into the bottom of the machine with a satisfying “plop” and then begin to fill with a delicious spray of sparkling water. The sparkling water is plentiful, and the cup will runneth over for a while before the machine decides it’s fulfilled its sparkling water machine duties.

    A friend and I thought the sparkling water machine was novel and very funny, so he took a picture of me in front of it. As he went to take a second so that the part that said “sparkling water” (or rather, gazirovnaya voda) would be visible, we heard a rather sharp “nielzya! (don’t!)” as an unsmiling official stared daggers at us, simply for the crime of being delighted enough by a sparkling water machine to want to preserve it for posterity. We quickly shuffled over to the train platform only to watch her motion for two young men to come over. The two performed a thorough inspection of the sparkling water machine and even opened it to have a good look inside. They then appeared to confirm to the original official that we were not terrorists who’d had the novel idea of planning an attack via sparkling water machine, or thieves who hijacked the sparkling water machine in order to dispense ourselves sparkling water whenever we so pleased, but just bizarre tourists naïve enough to think that a sparkling water machine was worth writing home about. Nonetheless, this officious official continued to give us dirty looks until we boarded the train. How dare we overstep the boundaries in this way? Sparkling water machines are very serious business.

  • Turkish Travel Stories: An Ode to the Turkish Budget Hotel

    Most travellers to Turkey will overspend when it comes to lodging, and for a long time I was one of them. But no longer, my friends! Through an unhappy accident, I discovered the Turkish budget hotel, and now I am joyously sleeping in less-than-clean cigarette-scented guest houses! This is my story.

    At the beginning of my first summer in Turkey, I was invited to stay with somebody that I’d met when I was there a few months before. Unfortunately, early into my stay, he got a phone call.

    “I’m so sorry,” he said. “That was my dream job calling. They want me for an interview tomorrow in Ankara. You can’t be here! I need to practice for my interview! I need to concentrate! I simply can’t blow it when I’m so close to achieving my dreams!”

    Rather than directing me to a hotel in the town where we were, he drove me to the bus station and said, “Go back to Izmir, take another bus to Basmane. There are lots of cheap hotels there. You can find something for around $25.”

    During the day, this probably wouldn’t have been a problem. However, by the time I got to Izmir, which was still strange and unknown territory at the time, it was already 10 p.m., and dark. I didn’t know where I was going, the family I was staying with was out of town, and I felt completely overwhelmed. Maybe my ex-friend’s directions were easy for a Turkish person to follow, and I think this was his assumption. But I was a foreign girl, alone, in the dark, in a strange city, and I didn’t speak Turkish yet.

    Then suddenly, like a mirage of a lush wadi in a scorching desert, a hotel appeared, complete with angelic music and all the other trappings of cartoon-like apparitions. Unfortunately, it looked expensive. A lot more expensive than $25. Confronted with the sudden choice between continuing on to Basmane and shelling out incredible amounts of cash to stay next to the bus station, I decided that the next best course of action was to burst into tears.

    “Why are you crying?” said the man next to me. I had to look down because he was only four and a half feet tall. “Are you okay? Did something happen. Do you need a place to stay? I’m flying out to London tomorrow morning, but I’m staying with my uncle and auntie tonight. If you’re in a bad spot, you could come and stay with us for a night. Don’t worry, I’m a good boy.”

    I did one of those hysterical laugh-sobs, because even if he hadn’t been a good boy, the fact that he was four and a half feet tall might have been a bit of an impediment to any rapey ambitions he might have had.

    I was pretty sure he wasn’t lying, and I was grateful. Unfortunately for him, I felt like being alone after the events of the day, and after a moment’s deliberation, I said, “Thank you very much – that’s so kind of you. I’m going to go to that hotel and ask them how much it costs, because I think I need to be alone right now.”

    I marched over to the hotel, walked into the lobby, and said, “How much does a room cost here?”

    The man behind the counter said, “150 lira.” ($75 American dollars, at the time.)

    Even this was a bit rich for my blood, so I heaved a sigh and made as if to blow that traveller-cheating popsicle stand and head to Basmane after all.

    The guy took a closer look at my puffy eyes, and said, “Ok. 100 lira.”

    What? Did the price just go down 50 lira?! That’s 25 dollars! And I hadn’t even been trying to bargain.

    100 lira was more like it. Even though I could probably have bargained more, I was exhausted and willing to spend the extra money to feel safe.

    “I’ll take it,” I said.

    Then I noticed a sign behind the counter. One night: 80 Euros ($120 USD)

    In that moment, I realized something. With the exception of large hotel chains like the Hilton, Turkish hotel owners actually just pull prices out of thin air based on how full the hotel is and what they guess travellers are willing to pay. This would not be the first time I witnessed this. Turkish hotels often post terribly inflated prices behind the counter in the hopes that unsuspecting tourists will just take a look and shell out their hard-earned cash.

    So here is the #1 rule of Turkish hotels for your personal edumification: You can bargain, and you should.

    Armed with my new knowledge, I took a bus to Basmane the next morning to find myself a cheaper place to stay.

    Eventually, I figured out about how nice a hotel that costs 25 dollars is supposed to be: not very nice. However, I have low standards for my hotels. They must be safe, they must have internet and air-conditioning, and they must not secretly be brothels.

    Mistakenly checking in to a brothel is a real concern. Signs include dirty sheets and televisions that only play porn.

    Unlike in Canada, in reputable Turkish hotels, you can’t simply bring a member of the opposite sex up to your room. If you try this, especially with a Turkish man, hotel staff will give him the stinky eye and block his way. This is a good clue that the hotel isn’t a brothel.

    Beware, however. Even if a budget hotel passes the not-a-brothel test, it may not be totally clean. In one hotel I stayed in, the toilet water was artfully garnished with a few cigarette butts. When I mentioned this to the man behind the front desk, he shrugged and said, “The cleaning lady must have forgotten them or something,” and went back to his work.

    At the beginning of my time in Turkey, I would have been bothered by this. By that point, however, Turkey had started to rub off on me, so I just laughed and went back upstairs. I only paid 22 dollars, and I got free breakfast with that. The next day, the same man asked me how I slept. I said, “the cockroaches were a nice touch.” He laughed, and so did I.

    Despite these gross details, I do recommend the Turkish budget hotel for budget travellers. They are not usually as sparklingly clean as hotels in Canada, but I don’t let it bother me unless it’s not even passably clean. You get a private room that you might not get at a hostel or couchsurfing, and sometimes it’s just nice to have a little time to regroup in your own (albeit temporary) space.

    Stay tuned next time for a step-by-step guide to checking into a Turkish budget hotel.

  • This Girl Got Bed Bugs in Montreal. Here’s How

    I chose the least gross picture I could find.

    After three months of living in a developing country, host to many creepy crawlies including cockroaches as big as my thumb, spiders as bit as a tea saucer, and the biggest grasshopper I have ever seen in my life I have arrived home in Canada, to our predictable, boring, and decidedly safe country. The day after I arrived home, I gazed happily at the clean streets and grey skies, as the cold 21 degree air raised delicious goosebumps on my skin. Inhaling a deep breath of the non-cigarette scented air, I thought “Man, am I ever glad to be home!”

    IMG_20140826_113843907

    A bad picture of the HUGE grasshopper. That is my finger for scale.

    Project number 1 was to find a place to live. This I did in two days. Having just come back from Turkey, which is cockroach central, I was very extremely careful about checking for pests, and probably asked the super about it five times. I also called the neighbours to confirm. The place was clean. Hurrah!

    My roommate, Baptiste, and I then had to furnish the place. Step 1 was beds. Passing a mattress lying out by the side of the road, Baptiste made as if to take it.

    “No Baptiste,” I said. “There be bed bugs in these streets, and they are scarier than the Hells Angels, the Charter of Secularism, and all the people convicted in the Charbonneau Commission combined. They will cause you physical harm, make you feel like you don’t belong in a place, and take your money all in one fell swoop. Let’s please not take that chance.”

    Baptiste thought that only a jerk would leave out a perfectly good-looking mattress without cutting it up if it were infested with bed bugs, but I was adamant. No roommate of mine was going to bring pests into our happy domicile. Plus, I wasn’t entirely sure that a person dealing with bed bugs would be clearheaded enough to advertise that a mattress was infested when they put it out by the curb.

    Since garbage picking for beds wasn’t an option for me (though *ahem* some other furniture may have been sourced that way), I found two beds and mattresses on Kijiji and got the guy to drive them over for me. Baptiste and he hauled the frames and mattresses up the stairs, and they ended up leaning against the wall until we got around to putting them up.

    When I took the mattress off the wall to sleep on it, I noticed something curious. A little bug, placidly climbing up the wall. Stolidly – almost stoically. He didn’t have any wings, so there was no way he could attain the heights he clearly hoped for without walking. He was the veritable Lillian Alling of bugs.

    “Lillian Alling” was little and brown and very scary, so I screamed. Then I realized how little he actually was and got a hold of myself, got rid of it, and didn’t think much of it . . .

    . . . until the next day. Baptiste and I finally got around to putting the frames together, and I noticed little black spots on mine. Suddenly, another scary brown bug darted out of one of the joints. He met his death by “end of a pen,” as I inadvertently smeared him all over the place.

    I still didn’t think anything of it, but I was paranoid about having pests so just out of curiosity the next time I was hooked up the internet I looked up what bed bugs looked like . . . you know, just in case I ever had to deal with them.

    I think you can probably see where this is going.

    Turns out that little black spots on your furniture are bed bug poop, which is actually digested human blood. That smear sustained at my hand – er, pen – was probably half digested blood.

    I should have known something was up when the first part of the name of the guy I bought the beds from was “Thug.” Won’t be making that mistake again.

    The rest of the story is that we had to deal with them fast, so I called the super.

    “Uh, hi? Yeah, so remember how I made such a big deal out of the apartment not having pests? And how I promised I would be a really good tenant. Yeah, well, I mean, this is really embarrassing, and I know we only signed the lease two days ago, but I found a bed bug!!!!!!!! And it’s all my fault because I brought them in. Please help!”

    I was hoping that the super would say something like, “Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that Kate, but it happens. Just let me wave my magic wand and the exterminator will be there in two minutes. We have a protocol for this because it’s just so common and anybody could be affected. In fact, bed bugs are like STIs – no matter whose bed you end up in, it could happen to you. Even just one time! They might not even know they’re infected! It’s totally not your fault.”

    He actually said, “Oh. Let me call the landlord. Are you sure it was a bed bug?”

    I said, “Yes. I’m dead sure.”

    “Well, we’ve never had these before, so I don’t know what to tell you. Except don’t take anything out of the apartment because you don’t want to scatter them in the hallways and infect other units.”

    Having already brought the beds all the way up the stairs (we live on the top floor) I gulped inwardly.

    “I’m very very sorry,” I said, overwhelmed by a wave of embarrassment.

    To be continued…

    In the meantime, here are some facts from the infinitely reliable sources of the internet and my own experience.

    Only 70% of people react to bed bug bites.

    It is best not to get bed bugs on a long weekend, because you have to wait that much longer for extermination.

    photo by:
  • Turkish Travel Tips II: Speaking Bad German in Turkey is Better than Speaking Bad Turkish

    german flagOne thing that I learned in Turkey is that speaking German in Turkey might actually be more useful than speaking Turkish.

    Although I tried my very best to pass as Turkish, something about my ginger hair, milky white skin, and battered green backpack seemed to alert people to the fact that I am not from their country.

    This was not usually a problem, except when it came to communication. For some reason, even though my Turkish is about 1000 times better than my German, people assume that because I am from the West, German would naturally make more sense as a communicative tool. In fact, at least once a week somebody refused to accept that I don’t speak German and doggedly continued telling me their life story as I gazed uncomprehendingly at their face and make small noises of protestation in Turkish or English.

    When I tried to buy a bus ticket:

    Me: Bilet Izmir’e almak istiyorum. I would like to buy a ticket to Izmir.

    Ticket Agent: Ah, maalesef Almanca bilmiyorum. Ah, Unfortunately, I don’t speak German. Here is my colleague, the handsome and multilingual Berk.

    Berk: Hallo. Ich spreche Deutsch. Sprechst du Deutsch? Ich liebe Deutsch sprechen! Hi. I speak German. Do you speak German? I LOVE speaking German!

    Me: Errr, etwas. Nein. Hayir. Almanca bilmiyorum. Türkcem Almancam’dan çok daha iyi. Izmir’e gidiyorum. Biletler var mɪ? Er, a bit? No. No. I don’t speak German. My Turkish is much better than my German. I’m going to Izmir. Do you have tickets?

    Berk: Ich wohne in Berlin, aber meine Familie wohne in Kuşadasɪ. Einkaufen. Rauchen. Apfel. Flughaven. I live in Berlin, but my family lives in Kuşadasɪ . . . he continues in German as I stare at his face blankly.

    Me: Almancam yok. İngilizce konuşabilirim. Ne zaman otobus Izmir’e gidiyor? Lütfen, bilet alabilir miyim? I have no German. I speak English. When does the bus to Izmir go? Please, can I buy a ticket?

    Berk: Fünf Uhr. Ich habe ein Haus in Munich. Schwester. Lederhosen. Tankwart. Five o’clock. I have a house in Munich . . . and so on in German.

    Me: İngilizce biliyorum. Fransizce biliyorum. Turkçe az biliyorum. Almanca yok yok YOK. I speak English. I speak French. I speak some Turkish. I have NO German WHATsoever.

    Berk: Hands me ticket.

    Me: Sağ olun. Çok teşekkürler. Iyi günler. Thanks. Thanks very much. Have a nice day!

    Berk: Kein Problem!

    When the internet stops working in my coffee shop 

    Me: Çok pardon. Internet yok. Internet çalɪşmɪyor. Excuse me! I’m very sorry! There’s no internet. The internet’s not working.

    Barista: İngilizce bilmiyorum. I don’t speak English.

    Me: Not a problem, because I am speaking to you in Turkish! And for the love of all that is good, I know my accent’s not that bad.

    Barista: Bakar mɪsɪnɪz! İngilizce, Almanca biliyor musunuz? Excuse me! Does anybody in the café speak English or German?

    Person in the café: Hallo. Ich spreche Deutsch! Ich liebe Deutsch sprechen! Die Toilette suchen Sie? Well hello! I speak German! I LOVE speaking German! Are you looking for the washrooms?

    Me: Nein. Tuvaletinizi istemiyorum. Internet çalɪşmɪyor. Anladɪnɪz mɪ? No. I don’t want the washroom.The internet isn’t working. Do you understand?

    Person in the café: Die Toilette ist nach oben. The toilet is upstairs.

    photo by:
  • This Girl Moved to Turkey After Falling in Love with a Man Who Didn’t Use Toilet Paper!

    Once upon an undergraduate classroom, I was reading a fantastic book partially set in Turkey called From the Holy Mountain. My friend Holly was also in the class, and at some point, one of us turned to the other and said, “Let’s go to Turkey and BUY! A! CARPET!”

    This was a far-fetched dream, considering neither one of us had a job that would allow for the sort of time off or  financial support we would need for such a foray into the world of international travel. So we sat tight, and dreamed, and sighed forlornly, and looked out the window at the pissing rain as we dreamed of the way our lives could be if we could just finish our degrees and do something else.

    By some strange stroke of luck, we both managed to get jobs at the same time that had paid vacation time. And so we booked our tickets, bought our visas, and jetted off to Turkey in February and March, 2014.

    When we finally found a good place to perform our planned carpet purchase, the carpet merchant and I really liked each other. We spent four days together in total, and when I came back to Canada we were both pretty upset about it.

    Looking back, this feels dumb. But a lot of things happened in the following months. I got word that I would be doing my Masters in September. I started feeling a lot of trepidation about moving again, because I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be able to find a summer job in the city where I was living, I had already moved three times in the previous year, I’d had a lot of trouble making friends, a pretty brutal breakup, and a job that I was really excited about but never really panned out into what I’d hoped it would be. Basically, I’d had a shit year, and the prospect of being more uprooted was a lot to bear.

    To combat the sense of displacement and rootlessness, I decided to make the most logical decision I could: move halfway across the world! Not to Western Europe, which is the most far-fetched thing my Mom could wrap her head around being a good idea. To Turkey! In the Middle East! To see if I could make things work with a carpet merchant!

    Yup.

    Since I didn’t have time to get a proper working visa, I found an au pairing gig online, and I got said carpet merchant to check them out for me. He gave the all clear, and I arrived in June.

    Things started fizzling between me and him before I even left Canada, but I was already committed to the job. They finished fizzling rather quickly on my arrival in Turkey. I went to visit, and asked for the bathroom.

    “It’s upstairs,” he said. “But there’s no toilet paper. But don’t worry. It’s not so bad to go without it.”

    “Oh, haha!” I laughed nonchalantly. “That’s not a problem at all. In fact, I shall just waggle my dick to dislodge the last few droplets, and we shall go on our merry way into the world of stuff and fun! It will be a laaaark!”

    After 24 more hours of similarly inhospitable treatment, I told him we wouldn’t be seeing each other again, and suddenly found myself thrust into the muddy waters of living in Turkey for no reason in particular.

    And that, my friends, is the story of how a holiday fling can motivate you to spend large amounts of time living in a foreign country equipped only with your sense of adventure and general pig-headedness. It is a foolproof formula to have the most wonderful, horrible, and bizarre experiences of your life.