Five Lessons We've Learned so Far

It’s been a crazy week, and I think we’ve spent most of it just getting oriented here. We should be posting more regularly soon. In the meantime, here are a few lessons (and a few photos) that we’ve gotten from our time here.

1). Carry correct change for the taximan.

J and I are still figuring out the bus system here, so we took a taxi to church this morning. After taking a route that took twice as long as needed (and making us late to church), our driver claimed he didn’t have any change. This was bad news for us, as the only bill we had was worth forty dollars more than the (already inflated) fare. If you find yourself in this situation, it’s worth it to have the driver find an ATM.

2) Be close to places you will go to regularly.

Since we haven’t adjusted to the water here yet (taking a slow approach has meant that neither J nor I have gotten sick in either Turkey or back in Morocco, while a bit of German water from our day in their airport messed J up for a few days), one of us makes trips to the grocery store daily for more bottled water (and usually fresh bread). We also want to go to church while we’re here. The shopping center, we knew before we got here, is a mere ten or fifteen minute walk down hill from us, which works well. On the other hand, we got up for church this morning at eight, and didn’t return to our apartment until two in the afternoon. We thought we had more options for church, but we were wrong, and that is not good.

3) Wear good shoes.

Remember the six hours of our day that going to church absorbed? Well, two of those were spent walking, which is actually the least amount of time we’ve spent walking in a few days. We’ve probably covered about thirty-five miles in the past three days between us. I don’t really want to think about what that would have done to us if we didn’t have good shoes.

4)Enjoy the scenery.

For whatever reason (probably the insurance), Americans don’t really seem to do balconies much. This is tragic, as they afford fantastic views. But even if you’re abroad and not on a balcony, you should pay more attention to the scenery than you would in the states. Foreign countries, oddly enough, do things differently, and the contrast can be fantastic. And sometimes the things that are the same, or almost the same, are the very best. Today we saw a delivery motorcycle for Ninja Turtles Pizza. That’s right, there is a place in this universe called Ninja Turtles Pizza. And they deliver.

5) Be somewhere with baklava.

J and I have often talked about how the food in America just doesn’t seem to be as good as the food anywhere else. This proved true in Morocco. It’s proving true in Turkey. It even proved true at an airport in Spain. Nowhere has it proved truer, though, than in the existence of baklava. We have found some here that quite literally drips honey. It’s fantastic. If you go abroad, go somewhere with baklava.