An Adventure To Forget

Well, the title says it all. I really didn't especially enjoy this... event? I don't want to call it an adventure because it wasn't that serious and there was no blood spilled. May be that's just a personal requirement for an adventure but anyway. It started at 4:00 P.M (16:00) Friday the 22nd of March.

I have started giving a women and her son violin lessons, and that's were this all started. I walked to their house in the rain, and gave the lesson. My shoes got quite wet on the walk there and on the walk back to my house. After the lesson I was going to stop by my house real quick and go to my leaders place and we were going to talk over logistics and stuff. because my shoes were a little wet I changed into my other pair of shoes which happen to be toms (if you don't know what these are it's ok, you can look them up real quick or just imagine hipster style slip on shoes). That was the worst decision of the whole night probably, those shoes were soaking wet before I got onto the mini bus. "Oh, well I thought." I'll just have to suck it up. Little did I know how much I would have to suck up.

For some reason, I still haven't been able to figure it out despite asking a few people about it, the mini bus took a strange turn off of the main road and kept going, when I saw this I asked to get off. I walked from where I was to where my leader's house, It wasn't that far but i'm talking in Turkish terms so it was fairly far.

After I had talked with my team leader for about an hour, and almost warmed my feet up I set out agian, this time my mission was a lot more extensive. I was going over to the European side of Istanbul to play music at a music club of a University with a spanish lady who was a student at that same University. I had meet her at a christian get together at a church a week before this. I was hoping to get connected at the music club through her more as well as meet some Turks and make a few friends by playing music with them.

Well, When I got out of my team leaders house on my way to the train station my phone told me that it had a low battery... great! this is just great. I was also running late and I had about an hour and a half worth of public transport ahead of me. I jumped on a train, metro bus across the straight, then a normal bus along the the straight to where the University was located. I came there late, and as I was walking into the music club, everybody was walking out! This meant that I probably wouldn't be able to connect with anybody other than the Spanish lady. For this story to continue smoothly let's call her Sally.

Now Sally is as we have stated previously Spanish, in addition to being Spanish she is also blonde and a girl. Now I know what you're thinking "We know she's a girl, and what does her hair color matter?" Well, let me tell you, this combination is extremely dangerous and in explaining why I am going to step on toes, no I'm going to stomp on them. Get the Aspirin out. First off, Girls can talk your brain into a gewy mush. Then, Blonds have a reputation for talking your ears and socks off. Finally, Spaniards seem to have all eternity and then some of time to spend. Let me tell you, she talked and talked and talked about music and piano and music and music. You're already getting bored and I haven't even explained about playing music. In each song we played she jammed for at least 5-7 mins twice! And then we did the song all over so she could turn her recorder on.

I was hungry when I got there and so you can imagine how hungry I must have been after only two songs (jams). When we finally wound up after what seemed like an eternity to my stomach I  bought some glorious food and ate it as Sally continued to talk, bless her heart. I had gotten to the University campus at about 9:30 so it was about 12:00 by the time I got my meal and 12:30 by the time I found space edge wise to suggest that we pay and go our separate ways.

I was going to spend the night on a couch at a family friend's friend's house, thank God I had met these guys at the same get together that I had met Sally so it wasn't awkward at all, In fact is nice to get to talk with them a little bit as well before they showed me the couch where I could crash. Now, yet again I mean no offense and I'm sure you are usually really good hosts but all I had for a pillow were two tiny couch pillows the size of my hand, and no blanket...

 Between figuring out where these guys house was talking and settling in for the night it was probably 2:30 A.M. My feet had been wet and cold since 5:30 P.M. and the room I was in was getting colder as it got later. between the cold and the sun rising early I got one and a half hours of sleep that night. That room was bright enough to read a book in by 6:00 A.M. After an hour of trying to keep the light out I finally resolved to get up and get an extra early start on the way home.

I had one problem though, I couldn't open the door it was locked with a key from the inside! Apparently they lock up at night. I had my violin on my back along with my backpack all ready to go. After struggling with the door for a while and finally becoming convinced that it was hopeless I put the bags down and began my search for a key. I felt kind of weird doing this but it had to be done, I looked on top of the door frame and along the top of the shoe cupboard next to it... I even felt up the pockets of the jackets hanging there in hopes that a pair of keys would be in there. But no bacon, I was locked in and it would be a few hours until any of the residence of the apartment woke up. Once I had realized the full extent of my situation I was good  ok with it. I just sat back down on the couch and got a book out of my backpack and read for an hour and a half. It took that long for someone to stir out of their slumber and make their way to the kitchen for a drink where I intercepted them and said these exact words "Good morning, could you do me a favor, could you let me out?" and just like that I escaped. I bought some breakfast and coffee at Turkey's version of a donut shop called Simit Sari and made my way home. My socks hadn't dried over night so I wasn't wearing them, but my shoes hadn't dried either so my feet were still wet and cold. Honestly I hadn't managed to get warm the whole night and I the breakfast was kind of week so I was still hungry  I noticed on the way home that the ink from my shoes had leaked through onto my feet, and so they were colored a little bit. Finally after all that time spent out of the house, playing music, freezing, being cold, having wet feet, sitting on trains and buses I only had one last bit to go. I just had to walk from the train station home. I honestly was very grumpy, and I carried my umbrella like a rod, ready to give the hood of any car or someone's legs a good wap if i deemed it reasonable.

I'll never forget turning the key of my front door and dropping my bags on the floor of my room, it felt so good to be back especially after all of that. I made a nice hot cup of instant coffee and took a nap.

 I know this was really long but I hope you read it or at least most of it.

God Bless
-Peter Davis