I can see Turkey from my House

Anonymous

My feet are resting on the railing of a balcony overlooking the warm Mediterranean sea. To my left is the shoreline of Turkey. To my right, the bay over which the Colossus of Rhodes – one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – may have stood. The vibrant colors have retreated from the sky to the west to be replaced by a few celestial dots of million-year-old light.

What just occurred in my head was a twitch of sympathy for the stars. The light that we see on Earth was originally emanated long before humanity even existed. It has finally reached the end of its journey, and chances are no one’s even looking.

Hah. Sympathy for stars. What a quaint, egocentric, and anthropomorphic concept….And a rather passable band name. Hmm….

I’ve done a lot of world travel in my life, but this is the first time I’ve been outside of the States without my family. This is partly the reason why this trip is and has been so deeply gratifying. The benefit of staying in one place is the arrival at complacency. Whereas in the past my family would have been constantly traveling from hotel to hotel or from port to port, living in a regular apartment allowed me to feel rooted; I was a part of the Athens scene, and not merely another American tourist. Independently wandering the streets of Athens at night or hopping on the metro, bus, or tram to get to a spontaneous destination meant a significant amount to me, as I have up until this point been living largely in time with my family.

Being as I am in a wholly different time, I become my own person.

Unless the entire class was traveling together, I didn’t ever feel like a tourist.* I successfully integrated with a group of locals, was recognized as a regular at several nearby cafes, and even became someone’s first American boyfriend.

Now I’m back in a hotel for the remainder of my trip. This is not a bad thing in itself (naturally it’s a few steps above the old and minimalistic apartments), but it does foster the mindset that we are just visitors, paying for an experience instead of a lifestyle. So in that sense, I can’t actually see Turkey from my house, but I could almost see the Acropolis from it.

*I certainly was one, though. We still did not have to deal directly with day-to-day politics and the economic crises, and our daily grind typically involved sipping coffee at cafes and taking pictures of old things.