Twas the Night Before Turkey and...I Can't Sleep

I leave for Turkey in about 8 hours and, though I felt prepared yesterday, today I’m very aware that I’ll soon be in a foreign country with no way of knowing what will happen. Sure, I know I’ll go to beautiful historic sites, I’ll meet new people, I’ll have a blast. Trying for anything more specific than that seems like setting myself up for an insulting comment about assumptions and a certain body part. From everything I have learned about Turkey, it’s pretty clear that I’m not the only person who doesn’t know what to expect. It seems like the whole country is in a state of flux, and I can’t predict what will happen or what my experience of it will be, but I am beyond thrilled that I’ll get to experience it. I’ve never been anywhere outside the U.S. and I can’t help but think that I’ve picked the best place for my first trip abroad. No doubt I’ll come home with more stories than any of my friends or family want to hear. It’s really too bad I don’t have a slide projector, because then I could make everyone sit down and watch as I narrate every one of the hundreds of pictures I’ll take. Well there! That’s one thing I know to expect- I’ll be one of those obnoxious returned travelers that can’t stop talking about their trip. And maybe that’s a good thing; I can dispel some misconceptions people have about Turkey. When I first told people about this trip, some of them wondered why I wanted to go to such an extremist Islamic state. Others wanted to know why I was going somewhere so dangerous for women. I never saw it that way and I still don’t. I don’t anticipate being confronted with dangerous extremism everywhere I go. Certainly that sort of thing is found all over the world, even here in the United States (though some would rather not admit it), and it’ll be present in Turkey too. That’s an inescapable part of living in the world with other humans. But I honestly think I’ll find more hospitality and kindness than prejudice and xenophobia. I’m going into this with nothing but positive expectations and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have an amazing time!