After two years of living in Turkey, you would think that we would have adopted somewhat the Turkish way of thinking, or at least adapted to it. You might even think that we would be more apt to keep an open mind about things that we don't understand.
But live in a foreign country long enough and you'll find that there are some things that still don't come naturally to you, that you just can't seem to wrap your head around.
That is essentially what happened to Jeff and I last week as we looked into taking my mom and step-dad to Foca for a day trip. We figured we likely had to go by bus, something we rarely did in Istanbul, and started asking around for how to get to the coastal city that guide books say is only 45 minutes from Izmir. We talked to the produce shop owner near our house and his advice was to take a taxi to the highway, then catch the bus to Foca.
"Take a taxi to the highway?" I said.
"Are you sure?" Jeff asked.
"Yes, yes," he said. "Just take a taxi to Semitler, then flag down the bus to Foca."
That sounded weird to us. Wait by the highway? How would we know which bus to take? How would we make it stop? What if we didn't see it?
We decided to ask at some of the charter bus companies if they had buses to Foca. Nope, not a one. They suggested we take city bus 612 from the Bostanli Iskele (ferry station) to the otogar, then catch a bus to Foca. That seemed to make more sense to us.
However, if we had looked at the map, we would have realized that it didn't make much sense at all. Note the map below. This is the route that bus 612 takes from Bostanli to the south side of Izmir to the otogar.
What you're looking at here is the city of Izmir. We live on the north side of the harbor; the bus winds its way along the coast before heading inland and south to the otogar.
We got to the otogar in time to see the Foca bus leaving the station, but there was another in a half hour that we got on. If you've ever seen a map of the Izmir area, however, you know that Foca is NORTH of Izmir. So guess what route we had to take to get to Foca?
Yup, you guessed it. We had to travel through the city -- AGAIN -- to go north.
And we didn't just drive straight through. We stopped. Oh, yes, we made many many stops. We stopped at street corners, we stopped in front of cafes, and we stopped along the highway, all to pick up passengers also going to Foca.
I guess that's what our neighbor meant when he said to take a taxi to the highway, huh?
The ride to Foca took a whooping two hours, and the whole time Jeff and I alternated between grumbling and trying to calm ourselves down. About an hour after leaving the otogar we passed Karsiyaka, which is about a 5 minute car ride to our neighborhood. We groaned. "How were we supposed to know that going to the highway and waiting for the bus was a better idea?" I said to Jeff. "It's just not what we do in the States. You get on the bus and the bus goes, no stops, all the way to its destination."
It just goes to show that no matter how long you live in a foreign country, there's probably always going to be things that you're still going to be learning the hard way.
