So, as you probably deduced by the combination of my absence, the holidays, and my most recent post, The Way Home, I went on a bit of a winter vacation! I planned this just under a year ago when my Peace Corps assignment became finalized in order to give myself something to look forward to over the first eight months of my service, and it was a great way to stay positive and motivated. I saw a fair bit more than I can cover in just a single post, so I’ll be breaking this up across a couple of days. Part 1: Getting To Prague
Part 1 starts at 12:30 AM at my house in Osh. Actually, it starts the night before, when a small fire knocked out our house’s heat and lights. I spent the evening packing my bag in the darkness before sleeping a few hours, then waking up to go to the airport. As I’ve mentioned in a few posts, flights in and out of Central Asia often operate in the middle of the night; Turkish Airlines takes its smallest planes set up to fly short domestic flights in Turkey during the day, and flies them to Central Asia at night to keep them making money when they would otherwise sit idle. They make some money, and I get a nonstop flight to Istanbul out of Osh!
None of the cars were outside the house, so I took my things and called a taxi. Naturally, the taxi got lost, but my neighbor happened to drive up at that instant and helped me not only direct the taxi to my house, but also negotiate a good price to the airport. Once I was on my way, my host father gave me a call asking where I was, and saying he would come take me to the airport. A poor connection and a few dropped calls later, he told the driver to pull over about halfway to the airport on the side of a deserted road in the countryside at 1 in the morning. Then, lo and behold, my host father pulled up in front of us and kindly paid the taxi. He told me that I should have called them, that since I was family, it was their responsibility to drive me to the airport no matter the hour. Ironically, my attempt to be polite by letting them sleep had, because of the wonderful culture of community here, actually been slightly offensive. Oops! He was happy to drive me to the airport, and we enjoyed a nice samsa and carrot salad at 1:30 in the airport cafeteria while we waited for my gate to open so I could go through security and check in. Osh Airport, unlike any other I’ve been to, sends you through the mega-security check before the check-in desks instead of after. Also unlike any other, you are required to remove your shoes not so that they may be X-rayed, but so that you won’t get dirt on the carpet they have laid out through the metal detector. I landed in Istanbul at 6 AM.
On the flight, I happened to sit next to a wonderful woman who I chatted with for a good deal of the flight. It turns out she works at one of the other polyclinics in Osh, and she was on her way to New York to meet her brother to tour America, including New York, Miami, and Seattle. Having lived in two of those three cities, I was particularly excited for her, and we talked a lot about our lives and our work. She is Tajik, but prefers to speak Russian, but with me spoke a mixture of Uzbek and Kyrgyz – classic Osh. At one point, I translated for the flight attendant from Turkish into Uzbek. Since she didn’t speak English at all, I wrote a few phrases on a card for her to show people in case she got lost or separated from someone she could communicate with. Finally, in Istanbul, I found someone who could guide her to her next gate, since it was her first time changing planes. It was one of those wonderful movie moments, and she and I plan to meet up here in Osh when she returns next week.
In Istanbul, I had a long layover, so after grabbing a visa, I entered Turkey and hopped on the metro to go take a morning walk around Sultanahmet and revisit some of my favorite back alleyways from my trip to Turkey two years ago. I fell in love with Istanbul then, and it is still my favourite city in the world. I walked around the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia, both of which were deserted seeing how early it was, before winding down to the Egyptian Bazaar to buy some lokum for my parents and I from my favorite lokum stall and then winding my way through the alleys up to the Grand Bazaar, where I had coffee and breakfast with a dear family friend who runs a wonderful shop there and whose wares decorate every room of my parents’ house (and my old apartment!).
A brief wander through all the beautiful stalls of the bazaar afterwards was all I had time for before bidding the city farewell and returning to the airport. where I boarded another flight, arriving in central Prague, Czech Republic shortly before sundown. Just before boarding, I walked over to the flight to New York to wave goodbye to my wonderful seat-mate from my previous flight, and was happy to see that she had found the gate and some food. She waved eagerly to bid me on my way. Finally in Prague, I made my way into the city centre, where my parents were waiting for me outside an apartment we were renting. 8 months of separation had come and gone, and we were together again for what was to be a wonderful holiday trip.
This is Part 1. Read Part 2 here and Part 3 here!
