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Boston
August 16, 2006
I don’t think I’m ever going to want to leave Boston. It could help that the weather is perfect, and the streets are clean, and the buildings are beautiful. There are students with coffee parading around everywhere and I’m more than tempted to approach one, reach out my hand, and whisper, “Do you go to school here? Can I touch you?”
Our eight-hour car ride passed surprisingly quickly. I was extremely sad to leave the house in Ocean City. The morning we left, the girls who lived there woke up and taught me to cook this amazing Turkish breakfast. This was after they coerced me to rise from the couch the night before to teach me to dance properly, to Turkish music, which involved a lot of snapping and more hip movement than Shakira can account for. The boys looked on, laughing and clapping. It’s those kind of moments that make it necessary for me to travel. Forever.
I’ve developed so much patience from not being able to communicate entirely. At the house, everyone did their best to try to speak to me in English (with Gökhan attempting to translate what he could), apologizing often for wanting to talk to me more in-depth but being unable to. I responded by smiling, constantly, and incorporating several Turkish phrases which Gökhan has taught me into my speech, including “hello,” “oh my God,” and, “yes, thank you.”
That being said, it’s also true that the extent of my English while in the house was limited mostly to “hello,” “oh my God,” and, “yes, thank you.”
Also, their favorite conversation with me, which occured at least twice a day, especially upon meeting new people, and only when Gökhan left the room, went something like,
“Gökhan is 24, yes?”
“Yes.”
“He is boyfriend?”
“No. Only friend.”
“But you marry him?”
“No. He will go back to Turkey in a week.”
“So you come to Turkey?”
I wasn’t ever really sure how serious they were, but I laughed nonetheless.
Gökhan graciously drove the entire trip here. I often freak out when I’m driving through a new city and have no idea where I’m going. Luckily, he finds this hilarious and merely laughs when my voice gets higher and I begin moving around the car maniacally, trying to see out of every car window at once, a death grip on my MapQuest directions. I don’t know when I began to trust him so entirely, especially in unnerving traffic situations, but I’m lucky to have him with me.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
I absolutely LOVED Boston when I went up there this past spring break. I think I can see myself living there in the future.