Istanbul | Bursa | Ayvalik | Kasadasi | Deliklicinar | Fethiye | Bodrum | Didim | Izmir  | New York

New York

District 6060-Missouri with District 2440-Southwestern Turkey

Final thoughts and tally's: Strangest foods eaten: Brain Soup  (Nikki, Ted, Carol) Fish Eyes  (Nikki, Keith) Lamb liver ragout  (Nikki and Ted)  - not stomach friendly Intestine sandwich  (Nikki and Ted) Total of Injuries on the trip (in chronological order): Chain bruise (where did that chain come from??)--Laura Marble steps vs. Gluteus Maximus (marble won by a landslide victory)-Nikki Broken Toe -Laura 2 Twisted ankles-Nikki and Laura (marble again) Another broken toe-Ted (marble steps again) Bruised backside-(bottoms up means bottoms up in an innertube)-Cindy Keith + windsurf pole = sore neck and Keith losing the windsurfing challenge... Now on to New York..... Our trip home The trip from Izmir to Istanbul was short and uneventful.  As a group, we were mostly lost in quiet reflection.  When we arrived in Istanbul, we had to grab our luggage and head for the Delta counter.  We got checked in and got ready to go.  It was here that we found out that our flight had been delayed by 45 minutes.   We killed most of them in the airport food court, with a brief stop in the duty-free shops. It was sad to think that in just a few hours we’d be having to go through our daily routines without the support of our team-mates.  But, we were glad to have the last few hours together.  Laura and Carole passed the flight chatting, listening to music and sleeping.  Nikki and Ted spent it trying to recuperate enough from such an exciting month so that they could to go back to work.  And Cindy and Keith spent much of the time reading “Knife Man” about the father of modern surgery and discussing the incredible history they had seen over the past month. When the plane landed in New York, we knew it would be close.  We had to grab our luggage, get through passport control, get through customs, re-check our luggage, go down a terminal, go back through security, and run down to the last gate in that terminal.  Needless to say, the 45 minutes we had were not enough and we missed the flight. There was some haggling, a little cursing, and a few tears as we made our peace with the fact that we were not getting home that night.  We made our phone calls and double checked the arrangements, then headed to our hotel for a bite of dinner and a few minutes rest.  Keith, who went to graduate school in NYC, was excited to show us around his old stomping grounds.  While Carole went to sleep so she could shepherd us in the morning, the “kids” went out for one last hurrah.  We went to Times Square and bought I heart NY shirts. Then we went to the Empire State Building and looked down on the city below.  There was a little pang of sorrow within the group that we weren’t with our families as the lights twinkled before us. When we were thoroughly frozen (after all, Turkey was a lot warmer than the subzero temperatures at the first observation deck!) we headed for one of Keith’s favorite pubs: The Peculiar Pub.  We walked in, and instantly felt at home.  On the wall across from our booth, a blue sign blazed that Efes – the group’s favorite of the Turkish beers – was served here.  We skipped the Efes, in part out of deference for the trip, and in part because we were ready for a change.  We mostly sat quietly, lost in our own thoughts. We rode back to the hotel in style – Keith hailed us a limo.  After a brief moment of discombobulation, we managed to get back to our hotel.  We slept only a short time, then woke up so that we could leave for the terminal at 4 AM.  We were on the flight with several other people who had missed the connection to St. Louis.  As we landed in Atlanta, we found our gate and then waited anxiously for the plane to come and take us home.  It took an eternity and, at the same time, merely an instant before we were sitting in our seats for our last hour of flight time. We arrived in St. Louis to our happy families.  We collected our things, paused for one more group picture, and then went our separate ways to try and return to our normal routines. With less than a week between our final moments in Turkey and our lives in St. Louis, it’s still hard.  We were so pampered, some part of us still expects the food to just arrive at the table.  We long for çai to appear in front of us wherever we sit down.  Occasionally the residual smell of Raki or Efes or Kofte will drift past from no where in particular.  We long for the kick of our favorite meze dishes.  We think often of the people who changed our lives.  The sea and the mountains seem very far away but are still vivid in our memories.  And, many times, we stop, mid-sentence to giggle at jokes that only 5 other people in the world would find funny. It is still impossible to comprehend how our experiences have shaped the course of our destinies.  As time passes, as we move farther away from this point, there is little doubt that Turkey, Rotary, and our wonderful new friends, will continue to be of major importance in our lives. I can not say what the future holds, but I hope Şehnaz read our fortunes correctly – and that more wonderful things are on the horizon for us all.