I’m leaving tomorrow for a week-and-a-half-long trip around Turkey and Greece. It’s gonna be a LOT of travelling. I’m going by bus, plain, and ferry to get all these places. I’m in the excited, nervous, slightly morbid state of mind I get into before all my international trips.
Why?
This’ll be my first time in Turkey and Greece. It’ll be my first time crossing the Iraq-Turkey border by bus. My first time on a ferry. I don’t know Turkish, or Greek (at least I read Greek fluently – although I won’t understand much of Modern Greek). I’ll be travelling alone for most of it.
But the anticipation is always worse than the actual deed. Every single time I’ve travelled, I’ve gotten on the ground and all my worries prove to be trivial. I meet wonderful people who help me, and these magical coincidences happen which make me believe that the universe knows exactly what’s going on.
Here’s the rough itinerary:
Thursday, March 7: Take red-eye bus from Suli, Iraq to Diyarbakir, Turkey.
Friday, March 8: Early morning arrive in Diyarbakir. Possibly jaunt over to Hasankeyf.
Saturday, March 9: Fly from Diyarbakir, Turkey to Izmir, Turkey.
Sunday, March 10: Explore Izmir.
Monday, March 11: Bus up to Bergama
Tuesday, March 12: Bergama, Ayvalik
Wednesday, March 13: Ferry to Lesvos.
Thursday, March 14: Explore Lesvos. Red-eye ferry from Lesvos to Piraeus (Athens).
Friday, March 15: Arrive in Piraeus (Athens) in the early morning. Meet with a friend in Athens. Take a nap, then see: The Acropolis, the Plaka, the Syntagma, etc.
Saturday, March 16: More Athens. Maybe Mykonos.
Sunday, March 17: Athens’ surroundings.
Monday, March 18: Fly out of Athens back to Diyarbakir.
Tuesday, March 19: Bus from Diyarbakir to Suli.
Wednesday, March 20: Celebrate Newroz in Suli.
Thursday, March 21: Newroz picnic (seyran) in Suli.
See you in 2 weeks!
In Mutual Weirdness 
I am so jealous. Turkey was the coolest trip ever and I have been itching to go back. We got along quite well with just a few butchered words in Turkish- hi, bye (“ghoul-eh ghoul-eh”), thank you, there is (“var”), there isn’t (“yoke”). We also had to learn the word for car jack (“creek-oh”) on a lonely road near Troy. Good times.
Bergama and Ayvalik are both awesome. Don’t miss an opportunity to go to a street market. In Ayvalik there is a little place called Çöp(m)adam (literally, “Garbage Ladies” but also a pun that we didn’t entirely understand) where woman who have never worked before make cool things out of materials that would otherwise be in the landfill. They are very nice and you can buy their stuff. The place is on Alibey Camii Caddesi, south of the Ayos Yorgis Church (Çinarli Cami).
We found these handy little vocab cards at our hotel in Istanbul: http://d.pr/i/9B1H and http://d.pr/i/eM0v. The letter ç is pronounced like “sh” or “ch,” and the ş is “sh”. There’s some other stuff I forgot.
Basically, Turkey is fucking awesome and I’m super jealous and I want to hear all about it!
ooh, thank you for the advice and the flash cards! I am realizing that I really didn’t plan as I should have for this trip, and these tips are awesome. I’ll definitely seek out the Garbage Ladies soon!
Oh also, most Turkish people know numbers in English. Also, you are pretty expected to haggle prices. I’ll be ashamed of you if you buy a scarf at full price…
I will try to not disappoint you.
You will see many signs in Greece that say: Idiotic Metaphor. Your challenge is to figure out what that means without looking it up.
Metaphor for the self? I’ll try and figure it out.