White Baboon

1. Seeing a live and very unruly black ram led out of the cargo hold of a passenger bus.
2. Basking in the inspirational energy of a Ani Pierpont who just wrote Sinan Diaryz—a walking tour book of Istanbul’s Ottoman architecture. God, I miss American female bonding.
3. Watching Turkish woman avoid “regular” toilets in favor of the stand-up squat variety. But, I guess when you’ve been going touch-less you’re whole life, a plastic seat seems gross. (Yes, Christine, of course I’m hovering!)
4. Learning what a real supernova is.
5. Attempting to sink into the floor as a violent movie called “The Marine” began playing on a bus ride through Turkey.
6. Having a conversation about time machines with Michael over our umpteenth (Mom, this is your word!) donner kebab and ayran (something like buttermilk).
7. Time spent with Kirdir–the rug-selling, bike-renting, triathlon-coaching guy with a moustache.
8. Being served coffee, water, tea and cookies. On a bus. Does Greyhound do this?
9. The inescapable irony of having to explain that we were in the “Peace Corps”, to Turkish people, at this present time.
10. Joking with Sez, our second Turkish couchsurfing host, about the Seinfeld Soup Nazi.

At the Al Gawaher Hotel in Aleppo, Syria, we spent nine days (and Christmas) recovering from the past three couchsurfing episodes. In this city, when not gazing at its black-wafer-cookie-architecture, authentic bazaar, frequent stares and intimidating citadel-with-moat, we sat in our 50 degree room and enjoyed an Arabian network of satelite television, including four English-speaking channels! Pure gluttony with CNN, Seinfeld, Rocky and dumb Christmas movies followed. Anything to remind us of America.

But sitting in the heated (!) lobby on our very first day was what did me in. We caught a special on American football, a special which by some miracle had chosen to focus on a team called the Denver Broncos and present a photo-music montage (code for tearjerker) of 1995 Super Bowl clips as Cher sang the national anthem.It was quite a moment.

Thanks to fellow travelers, we are sometimes grimly reminded of America’s downfalls. We get shit for our fast-food, our “fake football”, our allegedly difficult border patrol, No Child Left Behind test-score-obsessed teachers, tawdry exports like Brittany Spears. . .and of course, Bush.

Yet, still. Despite ALL of that, what we most often find ourselves saying is: You know, America’s not such a bad place after all.