8 October ’04, Friday. We awoke to a heavy downpour of rain on our last morning in Istanbul. Driving in a town of over 20 million people, that doesn’t get that much heavy rain was a challenge. Traffic was a lot of the time at a complete standstill for minutes at a time. Water was over every curb, and cars and trucks were stalled everywhere. Finally, we reached the bridge that would carry us out of town and we were on our way. We were traveling into the center of the country, Ankara the capital, and then heading south to Cappadocia. This was going to be a day and a half of travel. We finally stopped just outside of Ankara in a town called Gobasi. Bon and Doug were to stay in a hotel and Louise and I in “Bumble Bee” and the hotel lot. After checking in, we jumped into the van and headed in to dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel….well, we tried…, we couldn’t get back across the street to go “back”. So, we headed out in the wrong direction for 23km before we were able to turn around and finally back to the hotel. Almost 50km round trip…(am I doing something wrong ???). Anyway, morning comes, we have a bite to eat at the hotel, and we are on our way. Around 10:45am I have to stop for gas, and while I am working with the young man giving us gas, a car with 4 young men comes in and comes over to the van. One of them (Erhan) is speaking very good English, and everyone is having a good conversation. Finally, Erhan says he is getting married today. After all of us giving him our congratulations, he invites us to his wedding…he says it will have, “lot’s of dancing, singing, eating, and drinking for THREE DAYS….AND WE ARE INVITED !!!! It turns out, that we were the first tourists that he has ever seen in his town, and he wants us to share his day with him. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t possible, so we said our good-bye’s and again congratulations. As we headed further into town, we found Ehran standing in the middle of the road waving us to pull into a parking spot. “At least have a cup of tea with me”… we said we would love to, so we got out thinking we would walk into the restaurant next door…wrong….he walked us down the street about 3 blocks to his families home, sat us down, introduced us to ALL his family, and then proceeded to feed us a wonderful meal….no was not in his vocabulary. There is more to this story, but you will have to ask us about it. It was a wonderful experience for all of us…Thanks to Ehran and his family. Now, back on the road to Cappadocia. Tomorrow…Cappadocia
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
*Locations*
All
*Archives*
November 2016
|