Square One - Turkey, Day 15

Saturday, June 11, 2005

We rode the airport shuttle through the dark streets of Istanbul. In the middle of the day, it took us at least an hour to get to the Side Pension when we arrived 2 days ago. Now it only took us 20 minutes to drive back to the airport. We arrived there at 3:30 a.m. and quickly checked in at the KLM desk. Apparently the Dutch are really effecient because they already had our boarding passes printed and waiting.

We walked over to our gate and plopped down to wait for our 5:50 a.m. flight. I borrowed James' CD player to listen to the new Coldplay CD. I put in my headphones, laid down on the chairs with my head on my backpack and listened. Wow. From the very first song, "Square One", this CD was amazing. By the time I got to song 4, "Fix You", I was actually quite emotional. I'm not sure if it was because this amazing trip was coming to an end or because the music was just that good. It was probably a combination of both things. I listened to the entire CD alll the way through.

After listening, I decided to go to the restroom. Across from the restroom was the duty free shop, so I walked around for a minute or so looking to see if there was anything I could/should buy. Since I just didn't need any liquor or cigarettes, I passed. Then I remembered that our Turkish friend, Deniz, works at the duty free shop during the night shift, so I started looking around to see if I could find him. When Mandy came by, she asked what I was doing and I told her I was looking for Deniz and did she remember if he was supposed to work that night. She thought he was, so I continued to look for him. Finally, Jay came by and I told him I was looking for Deniz. He said he was sure that I would find him... in the Antalya airport! In my sleep-deprived stupor, I forgot that we were in Istanbul and not Antalya.

So, feeling just a bit foolish, I walked back to the gate.

We got on our flight to Amsterdam with no problems. I don't really even rembember this flight. I think I listened to the Coldplay CD one more time and slept some.

We landed in Amsterdam at around 7:00 a.m. We weren't due to be at our gate until something like 1:30, so we decided to go into the city and look around for a while. We got through customs quickly and headed out into the mall in the front part of the airport to buy train tickets to get to Amsterdam Centraal (downtown). First, we tried to buy our train tickets at an automated machine with a credit card. It wasn't working for some reason, so we went to another machine and had the same result. Finally, Dick and I went to the ticket counter and bought our round trip train tickets for something like 7 euros each.

We went downstairs to the train stop and soon a sleek yellow and blue double decker train whisked into the station. We jumped on - there was actually no one there to check our tickets, so I guess we could have ridden for free. Soon we were on our way to Amsterdam Centraal. This train was fast and smooth. It was cool to see the city from through the windows. It made me want to go spend more time in Europe. Everything was very clean and modern.

About 15 minutes later we were at the train station - it was a huge station just like one that you would see in a movie. In fact, it is the same train station you see in the film Ocean's Twelve (thanks to my friend James for that fact). We quickly made our way outside and there we were... in Amsterdam!

Not sure exactly where we wanted to go, we just started walking in what seemed to be the main direction to the center of the city. We were surrounded by old churches, old buildings, tons of shops and restaurants and a very diverse crowd of people. Amsterdam is a very cosmopolitan and pluralistic city. There is pretty much every type of person there and you can pretty much do anything. There is legal gambling, legal prostitution, some legal drugs (marijuana, for instance), legal abortion and basically legal euthanasia. We walked for several blocks and realized that we were hungry for breakfast, so we started looking for a good cafe.

And it was cold. Somehow, I had thought of this and had brought a pair of jeans and put them on in the airport, but I was still a bit chilly. We found a nice cafe for breakfast on one of the side streets. The restaurant was pretty smoky, but the food was pretty decent. Like Turkey, apparently there are no smoking/non-smoking sections in The Netherlands.

We thought about trying to go tour the Anne Frank house/museum, but we weren't exactly sure how far away it was, so we decided against it. In retrospect, I wish we had gone to the Van Gogh museum, since he is one of my favorite painters. I guess that means I have to go back some time...

As a side note, why do they get to call their country Holland AND The Netherlands? And why are the people called Dutch? Why aren't they called Netherlandese or Hollandish? Can anybody answer these questions?

Well, I just looked up part of the question on the web and found out this: "Holland - popular reference to the country known as The Netherlands. Holland is actually a province (state) in The Netherlands" Now you know.

That still doesn't explain why they get to be called Dutch.

Anyway, after breakfast, we walked a few blocks to a big plaza. It felt very European, there were tons of people milling around, artists painting, people dressed up as strange creatures and statues trying to make money (there was someone who had painted themselves silver and they were doing an impression of the tin man from the Wizard of Oz), TONS of pigeons, statues, etc. And there were millions of bicycles. I know, many of you are thinking, "millions? Come on, Brett, there couldn't have been millions!" Well, there were, I promise. (Ok, I looked this up too, there are only 600,000 bicycles in Amsterdam...) And they were all these very Dutch looking bicycles. You know, cruiser style with the baskets on the front and the little bells on the handlebars.


We even got to see part of a TV show being filmed. We might have been in one of the shots, so if you are ever watching Dutch TV and see someone that looks like me... it is me.

After milling around for a while, we decided to keep walking. We just picked a street that looked cool and took off. We ended up seeing some great houses, more bikes and great views of the canal system. You see, there are tons of canals and boats. You can pretty much get around the city by boat, bicycle and train better than by car. They actually recommend that you not drive in the city because it is just easier to travel by various other means.

Yes, those houses are leaning

We walked around for a couple of hours just admiring the architecture and feel of the city. After a while, Jay got hungry and we stumbled upon a shop called "New York Pizza", so he went in to grab a slice. When he came out, I snapped a quick picture of him.

What a tourist...

Finally, it was time to head back to the train station. I quickly decided that I would come back to this city someday. In just a matter of a few hours it had completely captivated me and I was sad to leave.

We walked back through the plaza and to the station, then boarded. I listened to a bit of Coldplay as we flew across the city. What a feeling... listening to Coldplay in Amsterdam. I think the album X&Y is quite European in feel anyway, so seeing Amsterdam out the window of the train as I listened was a visceral experience I won't soon forget.

When we got to the airport, we quickly walked back through the terminal to our gate and soon boarded our plane for the long flight back across the Atlantic. This time our destination was Detroit and our plane was a KLM plane (our other trans-Atlantic flight was a Northwest Airlines plane). Let me tell you, this was the coolest plane I have ever flown on. It was a typical widebody jet in a 3 seats, 5 seats, 3 seats configuration. The cool thing was the LCD screens in the backs of the seats in front of each of us. I have actually experienced this before, but this time, each of our LCD screens had on-demand entertainment. We each had a remote that popped out of our armrest that would allow us to choose from dozens of new movies (some still in theaters), dozens of TV shows, dozens of music stations, dozens of video games, several games (like trivia) that you could play with other people on the plane, interactive maps where you could get facts and figures about various countries and cities, etc. It was amazing.

A couple of hours into our 9 hour flight, they served us a meal, then I decided to watch a movie. I couldn't decide between Million Dollar Baby or Hitch. Heck, why not watch both?!? Since I wasn't in a serious mood at the moment, I decided to watch Hitch first. It was lighthearted and very funny.

Soon after I finished the movie, I decided to listen to my iPod for a while. Suddenly I got quite nauseous and dizzy, so I took my headphones off and began to put them in the seat pocket in front of me. Apparently I lost consciousness and fell forward, then to the side. There was a doctor 2 seats away from me who witnessed the entire thing and quickly roused me. After I came to, I was again quite nauseous and broke out into a cold sweat. The doctor asked if I was epileptic because initially he thought I had suffered a seizure. Then he asked if I knew anyone else on the plane and I pointed to James in the row in front of me. He tapped James on the shoulder and woke him up, then asked him if he knew me. James was quite out of it at first, so he said he didn't know me. Finally, he realized what the guy was asking him and said he did know me. Eventually, we determined that I hadn't had a seizure, but just passed out, probably from dehydration and just sitting too long. After a while, I got to feeling better, so I got some water and walked around the plane trying to get the blood flowing again. After about 30 minutes of pacing around the plane, Jay joined me in the back and we talked for a while with one of the stewardesses who had bought some 20 or so bottles of wine in the duty-free shop in Amsterdam to take home with her. She claimed that she bought it there because it didn't have any sulfites in it like the wine you buy in the U.S., but Jay and I decided she just drank a lot.

Eventually I sat back down in my seat and the rest of the flight was uneventful.

We landed in Detroit and had to pass through several long, slow lines through customs. I'm sure they wanted to make sure that we weren't terrorists or something.

Then we headed to our gate. On the way, I exchanged my last bit of money (Turkish Lira and Euros) back into American Dollars. Then I realized that I could call Elise on my cell phone since I was back on American soil. I called her and we chatted for about 20 minutes. Then I grabbed a salad at McDonald's and went to meet the rest of the group at the gate.

We had about an hour delay, then finally got on the plane. Once on the plane, they told us that we would be unable to use the bathroom because of some kind of mechanical problem. After a bit of a delay, the pilot came back on the intercom and announced that we would be changing planes because they felt like it was inhumane to make us fly on a plane without a bathroom. Something about FAA regulations...

Once we got on a working plane, the pilot said that drinks were on the house! Of course, aren't drinks always on the house on planes?

An hour and a half later, we landed in Northwest Arkansas. After we got off of the plane, we gathered up in a circle and said a quick prayer thanking God for an amazing trip and for his protection while we traveled. Then we walked to the terminal. As I started down the escalator, I saw Elise and the girls waiting for me. Maitlyn and Elspeth had made signs that said "Welcome Home, Daddy" on them and they were really excited to see me. There were lots of hugs and kisses all around.

Soon I grabbed my bag from the carousel, said goodbye to the team and we left the airport. Mission Turkey was officially over.

This 2 week trip to Turkey was amazing. In many ways it was life-changing for me. I now have a different perspective on the world and various cultures. I was able to see God at work in many ways. I hope that by journaling about my experiences, you have gotten a taste of some of what I learned, felt, thought and experienced. Thanks for reading - Brett.