The last few days before I left proved far more stressful than I had anticipated. My ticket for Sunday night gave me a few extra days, so I thought that I would not be too rushed in all my last-minute packing. Or not. Just as I was pulling out of my street in St. Louis with my parents’ truck filled to the brim with the majority of my worldly possessions, I notice that I can’t turn the wheel. It was not the time for the power steering pump (something I previously did not even know existed) to go out, but it did. My cousin and aunt came to the rescue, along with a repair shop not only still open at 8, but secure enough I could leave the truck with all my stuff overnight in the garage, something I could not say for my neighborhood. Everything was solved, but I lost about 10 hours of packing time.
Adding to that stress, at midnight on Friday, I double-check my flight. After having looked at the email several times, sending it to three other people as well, only with the clarity of a late night stupor, do I notice my name is spelled wrong. My wonderful father woke up at my panicking and called Turkish Airlines to try to solve the problem. He was successful enough that he was convinced I would be fine but I was not. The remaining time at home was spent fretting about whether I would actually be allowed on the plane. This did not make for sleepless nights, but it hid from my consciousness the true enormity of what I was about to do.
That said, I still had a great time with my family at my brother’s last show. In perhaps a show of sibling solidarity or a cruel twist of the calendar, my mother had to say goodbye to both me and my brother on Sunday. Saturday night was Griffin’s last show with his band. As this has been the longest commitment in his life so far and a defining feature of his adult life, leaving the band was a big moment for him. Having expected to miss his last show, I was very glad to get to witness it. (For those of you who don’t know, my brother got married in June and is moving today with his brilliant wife to Boulder, CO so she can pursue a PhD in Art History). The show was a lot of fun, and it was very evident Griffin will be missed.
As I’m writing this from the Istanbul airport, I clearly made it on my flight. I had no problems whatsoever, as my father had guaranteed. My flight was at 10:30PM, so it was fairly easy to fall asleep. I had no one seated next to me, so I was able to stretch out a bit. In general, Turkish Airlines was pretty awesome. They gave everyone a little pouch of goodies like an eye mask, ear plugs, socks, toothbrush, and toothpaste. I did not watch any of the movies because I was too busy trying to sleep, but I did appreciate the selection. They had a sweet Turkish movie about an American discovering some secret about Topkapi Palace (a very cool Ottoman palace in Istanbul). I would have watched it had they offered it in English. They were also showing things like Little Red Riding Hood and Battle:Los Angeles, which made sense, since they are relatively new. They also had Ever After, which has to be at least 10 years old. The true find was Big Trouble in Little China. I have no idea how Turkish Airlines got a hold of this movie or decided it would be a crowd-pleaser. I only know of its existence because someone found it in the $5 bin at the Kirksville Wal-Mart several years ago. Oh the pervasiveness of American culture.
Instead of watching movies, I slept and crammed for my first test on the Georgian alphabet: Georgia. I’ve had an intro to Georgian book since Christmas, but I kept finding other things to do and spent my limited studying attention span on the GMAT. My goal was to at least have the alphabet down by the time I set foot in Tbilisi. I knew I could study on the plane if I had to…I had to. It’s starting to make sense but a few letters still trip me up. I’ve started to learn a few words. I’m planning on learning most of the language by immersion. It will be a fun test of this theory that studying by immersion is the best. I’m sure, at 25, I am not the best test subject, but my language learning ability is probably about the same as when I was eighteen and trying to learn Russian.
I could go on, but this is long enough. This is what happens when you have 6 hours to kill. I promise future entries will be less filled with humdrum details and more cool cultural experiences/observations. However, if this blog post does go up, consider it a big blogging success. Blogger is now entirely in Turkish so I'm guessing at what buttons to press. Also, a French(?) group of teenagers just got finished playing some kind of karate-chopping improv game. It was nice to see some non-Americans making a spectacle of themselves.
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