Living in Turkey kind of messes with the mind. All the sudden I'm used to rules changing on a daily basis. If the rules have a tendency to change then the mind sort of takes on another monster and starts to through things around too. Just the other day I had a few minutes where I couldn't remember if I was 32 years old or 33. It's been almost 2 months since I turned 33 so I should be used to the fact that I'm a year older. Apparently I'm not.
This is my third adventure in Turkey. The first 2 were 14 and 12 years ago. Not much has changed on the Turkey side of the house. This time around I'm a lot higher up on the food chain. All the sudden I know more about what is going on and why the military has a presence in such an odd part of the world.
I just finished my first month here. It took that long to get settled and figure out what I am supposed to be doing. Fortunately I am here for 15 months. If the remaining 13 1/2 months go as fast as the first month and a half then I will be leaving here before I know what happened.
There are so many places I want to go. Kappadocia, Izmir, Alayna, Istanbul, maybe Israel if I can swing it. There still has the be the focus on work but I want to bring a focus on exploring (something I didn't quite do in Italy). I just have to get over the initial adjustment of allowing my body to react fully to the food, water, air...whatever. There's this thing that seems to hit every time I go to another place that hit me two weeks ago. I dubbed it the "Turkish Crud". It was "awesome". Full on sinus headaches, cough, mucus flowing from the lungs, major drainage from nose/eyes. I think I lost 2 gallons of mucus. I can finally breathe through both nostrils, I still can't take a deep breath without coughing.
So, here's to the next 13 months of being in a country that 90% of the world knows nothing about. Should be right up there with amazing.
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