Istanbul, Türkiye The bags were gone for hours. New country. New airport. Staff that were not particularly invested in solving our problem. And nothing to do but wait, track, and stay functional. That was my welcome to Türkiye. I’ve thought about that moment a lot…
Istanbul, Türkiye I am a germophobe. Not severely (I for some reason am completely OKAY with public gyms), but enough. So walking barefoot into a mosque for the first time — shoes off at the door, no exceptions — was not something I was mentally prepared for. Turkey was my…
The bags were gone. Not delayed. Not misplaced somewhere. Gone — the way things disappear when you’re in a country you’ve never been to, in an airport the size of a small city, surrounded by signs you can’t fully read and people who may not…
How Fear Nearly Cost Me My Favorite Region on Earth I almost didn’t go. Let me be honest about that. When Turkey first came up — when the idea of actually getting on a plane and flying to a country I had categorized in my…