Eternal Trip – The Never-ending Journey (Istanbul & Everything After #70)
Lost in time - Basilica Cistern in Istanbul (Credit: Hiro-o)

Eternal Trip – The Never-ending Journey (Istanbul & Everything After #70)

I am sitting here fifteen and a half years after my 2008 trip to Turkey. Now I am wondering when, or if, that trip ever really ended. And if it has not ended, will it ever? A trip is more than the physical act of travel. It is also a mental journey that begins well in advance of the actual trip and can last long after the return. An argument can be made that the mental part of a trip is more satisfying than the physical one. A gift that can keep on giving.?

Security Blanket – The Rough Guide

The end of any overseas trip can be a strange thing. Usually, a trip ends for me when one of the following happens: 1) I arrive home; 2) I arrive back in the United States; 3) I unpack my luggage, wash all the clothes, and put the items I purchased away. All of these happened after my return from Turkey, but I am still puzzled as to when the trip ended or if it ever really did. The more I have traveled since then, the more I have realized that trips do not end when I expect them to. They take on a life of their own, returning to astonish and haunt me years later. These trips get pushed to the back of my mind, but not out of my mind. The effects of a trip linger, even when my interest in the places I visited wanes. After returning, my interest in Turkey lessened, but it never became an afterthought. The trip was too unique to be discarded.

While I have never looked up the exact start and end dates of my trip to Turkey, they are not that relevant. This is because I have trouble pinpointing when the trip ended. I also have trouble pinpointing when it started. The journey did not start when I left home or landed in Istanbul. As far as I can remember, the trip started in a Borders bookstore almost a decade before I set foot in Turkey. That was when I purchased the Rough Guide To Turkey. My journey began as soon as I opened the guidebook and started reading. The Rough Guide would accompany me throughout the trip, The same guidebook is still within reach as I write this. The Rough Guide was just as much my travel companion on this trip as my best friend Steve who accompanied me. The Rough Guide was a security blanket that I kept clutching. Now when I see that book with its frayed edges and blue spine, I immediately think of my time in Turkey. The Rough Guide helps me recover memories anytime I want to revisit the trip.

Once and future generations - At Gallipoli

Hangover Helper – Many Happy Returns

I was surprised by the vividness of my memories while reliving the trip to Turkey over the past couple of months, The trip was just two weeks of my life, but very rarely have I lived life with so much curiosity and intensity. I felt awe, anger, fear, hope, joy, love, melancholy, and sadness during the trip. Sometimes I felt every one of these emotions on the same day. My feelings about the trip were bipolar. I wanted to go back home, and I wanted to stay forever. The journey was exciting and exhausting. When I got home, there was no place I would have rather been than back in Turkey. I would later contact the same company that had led my tour to inquire about a trip to eastern Turkey. I did not hear back from them.

I would have loved to travel across eastern Turkey, but an underlying need was filled when I made the inquiry. I did not want my initial trip to ever end so I conjured up a potential return. Another trip would have been an extension of the first one. I was not that disappointed when it failed to materialize. The important thing was that I tried to make a return trip happen. This helped compensate for the withdrawal I felt upon my return home. Turkey left me with a bad hangover, one that lasted for months. In a sense, I still have that hangover. My trip never really ended for the simple reason that I did not want it to. This became apparent to me upon my return home. I kept the trip’s memory alive, even as I took trips to many other foreign countries.

I could not let the trip to Turkey go. The entire journey was unlike anything I had ever done before. That created a lasting impression and an even longer afterlife for the trip. One that I am still enjoying to this very day. The experiences I had defined many of my foreign trips that followed. The trip to Turkey became a standard I sought to uphold. While I have never traveled on a group tour since then, my independent travel has been done in the same spirit of discovery that informed the trip. As much as I came to loathe the group tour, I came to love Turkey even more. This led to a perpetual case of separation anxiety. The only way to quell that anxiety was to tell myself there would be another trip in the near future. That future came and went without any resolution. The idea of it gave me something to which I could aspire. If I did the trip once, I could do it again. I would travel to Istanbul five years later. That trip would also be memorable, but never quite like the first one.?

Never-ending journey - View of Istanbul with the Golden Horn (Credit:

First Love – Deep Down Inside

My trip to Turkey only came to an end in a superficial sense. Deep down inside I knew that it was not over. I later realized it never would be. At times, the trip went into hibernation only to reemerge. I kept coming back to it as a reference point. All my subsequent trips to Eastern Europe were based upon the confidence I received by first visiting Turkey. That trip spurred me on to further adventures. The trip to Turkey was like a first love. The relationship may have ended, but the love never did. I now realize that trip will always be with me, and a part of me.




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