My Mission: 16 Countries in 6 Months

After class on Friday, which consisted of a short discussion about Ataturk and Turkish history AND another amazing Turkish lesson (during which I was experiencing excruciating bowel problems), we headed off to Bursa! This is when the adventure truly began. Getting to Bursa was analogous to entering the twilight zone (cue the eerie music).
The journey begins as we head towards Taksim via Istiklal Caddessi (pronounced JAH-DEH-SEE, means Street). The street is packed as we trek towards the Nilufer station (bus company we are using) with our backpacks and duffels stuffed full. Before I move on here is a little background to the trip. Professor Shields had been planning a trip to Bursa for a while, and Murat, our Turkish friend, happens to be from Bursa. Well, I took the opportunity to invite myself to his home since he happened to have planned a trip home the same weekend we were going to be in Bursa. The planning spanned over the course of 3 days as we were trying to communicate plans to Professor Shields, the rest of the gang, Murat, and Murat's friends. The night before the big day, we sat down on the terrace with Murat and ironed out some, well all, of the details. In the course of 2 hours, the Americans gleaned numerous different interpretations as to how Friday was going down. I cannot explain the pains all of us experienced, Turks and Americans, as we tried to communicate the plans for Friday. Luckily, that night I had chosen to try a new beer, the Marmara-- it proved to be our saving grace. The Marmara just happened to be the hotel next to the street that our bus company was located. Using this beer, Murat finally got across where the bus station was supposed to be. We were set for anything that was to come! After this long-winded dialogue/cacophony, we decided to go try some nargile (hookah/water pipe). Little did we know that the restaurant serving nargile was going to be on the 8th floor overlooking the entire city. It was a sight to see! After a few puffs of elma (apple) and mint nargile we finished Thursday's adventures and retreated home. Then Friday rolled on over--a test of our sanity.
After finally finding the bus station, only to watch our bus drive off without us, we found out we had to wait an hour and a half before catching another service bus that would take us to the action bus station. By the way, Friday also happened to be the start to a long and strenuous venture in my bowels :) Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this, but Murat, a few minutes before we left to smoke nargile, decided to tell us that there was a change of plans: he wasn't going to meet us in Kavacik, instead he was going to be arriving in Bursa in the wee hours of the morning. Moving right along, we get on the bus and arrive around 6:30 realizing that we must have missed our 6:15 Bursa bus. However, we come to find that the 6 o'clock Bursa bus just rolled up and left, so we patiently waited for our turn. Buses continually pulled up and left, the workers continually shouted in Turkish, and everyone at the station continually stared at us--a walking UN conference comprised of representatives from Germany, Albania, China, Ecuador, England, and whatever else they perceived ALL speaking English. Our bus finally showed up around 7 and with the help of a couple of Turks we ended up getting on without too many complications. Here comes the fun part! Traveling with seven people and sitting on a bus with paired seats, one of us was going to be the odd man out. I volunteered to be the odd man out because I was sick and developing a fever--what a great start to a weekend trip. The bus ride, one that was supposed to last 3-4 hours, ended up taking 6+ hours!
The situations we experienced on the bus made the trip to Bursa semi-creepy and foreboding. A little into the trip, the bus stopped at a second pick-up point where the rest of the seats were filled. Instead of leaving me the odd man out, somehow, with our strategic maneuvering, I ended up sitting next to Clayton, leaving Amanda with, who she called, a 'mystic' Turk. What an intriguing, curious, but odd man he proved to be. The bus ride was going swell, with most of the other students being ebullient and full of giggles, me and my doubled-over position, and the rest of the bus mumbling Turkish obscenities at every noise uttered from the Americans' mouths. Then, the bus started descending towards a large body of water, where all of us thought was going to lead to a small road. Oh, were we in for a surprise. The small road turned out to be a large parking lot guarded by uniformed militia. In reality, what looked like a large parking lot actually was an organized system to load us onto the ferries that would take us across the Sea of Marmara (Marmara played a significant role in my life this weekend). To Be Continued…