A Stranger Named Jimmy, In A Strange Land

We’re now cruising toward the Dardanelles, one of the historically important bodies of water in world history. To the port side (that’s the left, for any nautically-challenged readers) will be Gallipoli (in Europe), and to the right is Asia.

This is our full day at sea. We are nearly to the end of our time on the Aegean Sea. There are a lot of freighters coming through from the Black Sea. I also got the stats – there are 142 passengers and 98(!) crew aboard the Windstar.So, while I might not be able to post, I hope to get caught up on writing. I’m now three days behind on the narrative portions of the trip, but with nothing but time today. . .

Anyhow, I’m now at the point of the trip where the day-by-day accounting gets a tad boring to follow, so I’ll be jumping around from day to day.

Wednesday afternoon in Bodrum, after the tubing, we were hanging out on the boat. The girls were tired after sightseeing, swimming, and tubing. I got a bit restless, so Mrs. Iron Tourist released me to go back into Bodrum (remember, it was our first day in Turkey, so I wanted to see a bit more). The last tender wasn’t until 8:15pm, so it was a late departure to go to Kusadasi.

It’s a bit of a long walk from where the tender drops people off to the main part of Bodrum. I then turned off the main beach front into the back alleyways of Bodrum. Just one block proved to be a fairly dramatic shift from active resort area to slightly run-down beach town. There were betting shops, lots of small barbershops, and all the stores had much lower prices than the main drag. There were a number of closed stores, and a bunch of doner kebab take-aways. I was tempted to get one, but I didn’t have any Turkish Lira yet – the first ATM we had hit that morning only offered British pounds or Euros – even when I went with the Turkish language ATM screen.

(That proved to be a fun time guessing which is the right button to push. It all seemed to work out fine, although it is possible I transferred every dollar in our accounts to some son of a dead Nigerian diplomat.)

No one bothered me – or really even paid any attention to me. The sales work in the resort towns provided to be much less bothersome than in Greece, although I expect the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to be the topper.

After a bit, I made my way back to the waterfront. I purchased a piece of fruit from an old guy sitting on a curb in a park selling. He cut both ends, peeled it and I ate it. It was green on the outside, citrus on the inside, and shaped like a barrel. Even though I’ve asked a few people, I have no idea what I ate. It was pretty tasty – any ideas from the readers on what it might be?

It was on the meandering walk that I was hit with a traveler’s revelation. I was a little discomfited that we had come to Turkey and were basically at a resort town – rather than getting the true flavor of the country (although, to be fair, you can’t do everything).

It then occurred to me that this was still an authentic traveler experience (as it were). These areas are where people from all over Europe come for their vacations, so it is a polyglot of tourism. The towns had morphed from sleepy fishing villages 30 years ago into major destinations. I didn’t get the sense that the people working in the tourist towns were unhappy or bitter that they were flooded with people during the summer.

After wandering around with no particular place to go, and goal other than people watch, I started heading back toward the ship. I found an ATM that actually dispensed the currency of the country I was in. Unfortunately, it was all in 50s. It’s a 2:1 TL to Euro exchange rate, and the dollar is worth 1.4 to the TL (Turkish Lira).

So, I needed to break a 50 to have something smaller. So I stopped at an ice cream stand where the Turk felt the need to use his English to trash talk at me. "Hi, Jimmy. Jimmy want some ice cream? Jimmy should know this ice cream good." So I ordered two scoops, and he then starting asking if Jimmy was from England. I said no. Jimmy from Ireland? No. Jimmy from Scotland? No. Jimmy from Wales? No. I couldn't stand the suspense, so I finally broke in and told him I was from America.

He was surprised. He told me that "Jimmy’s face didn’t look American" because it wasn’t dark enough. I was now totally confused. He told me "Jimmy look like Englishman." Now I just wanted to move along. I got revenge, because I paid for a 5 Lira ice cream with a 50 Lira note. He wasn’t happy and wanted a smaller bill. I blamed the ATMs.

(I swear, he must have called me Jimmy 15 times or so. I didn’t see the need to be on a first name basis with him, so I didn’t introduce myself. Since he was pretty content to call me Jimmy, learning that I was "Glen" would have disappointed him as much as learning I wasn’t from Great Britain or Ireland ).

Of course, you can bet that he didn’t call me Jimmy the Greek.

We then had the most fun meal of the trip so far. Because we were anchored in port, they closed the two shipboard restaurants and set up a BBQ on the back deck. They had a whole pig, beef, lobster tails, corn on the cob, shrimp, and a whole host of other good food. We were on the top halfdeck, with a relatively private table.

It was Carol’s birthday, and everyone was in a good, playful, talkative mood. We sat, talked, and joked around for quite some time. I had ordered a birthday cake for Carol, and they brought it up for her. We all sang happy birthday and hung out for a long time.

The crew then broke out the line dancing. (We didn’t join in, except from the upper deck when YMCA came on). Carol and I then embarrassed our kids once they switch to playing dance/rock songs (Love Shack, Old Time Rock and Roll, Runaround Sue) and we got out on the floor. It was a very fun, relaxing evening as we sailed toward Kusadasi.