The Night Julia became an illegal immigrant...

In short, we are alive.

But here is the long version.

After several cry fests, fireworks, and hugs goodbye in Foxboro, I met up with Mackenzie at the airport to begin our sojourn to Turkey. The bags were checked, the milanos packed in my carry-on, and I was already tired. We were off to a good start. The flight to Munich was relatively uneventful, albeit delayed. The flight to Ankara lasted about 2 hours and consisted of about 10 people on the flight. Of course, out of those 10 people, I sat behind the man who was ripping the most foul farts known to humanity. Finally I got off the plane in turkey, breathed, and made the trek to the apartment. This consisted of one person total that understood English, a bus ride, a taxi ride, an embarrassing walk around the entire university, and then a walk from the university to our apartment.

that’s when the fun began.

We entered the apartment that we were assigned to, only to be hit with a smell that can be likened to the scent of a dumpster full of Chinese food on a warm summers day. We will later find out the source of this stench is attributed to all of the rotting food left in the fridge. The smell was exacerbated by the fact that there was no working electricity throughout the entire apartment. We managed to meet up with Warren, and found out that the boys were accidentally given our apartment and vice versa. Because of this, we decided to move our bags from the smelly 4th floor to the 11th floor.

This is the part of the story where Mackenzie got stuck in an elevator, and, in turn, we met all of our neighbors.

We finally get out of the elevator in time to return to the university to meet up with Julia. By the time we get to TOBB, Julia is not there, and we hear that she has lost all her baggage. We exchanged worried expressions, until we finally saw Julia’s smiling face through the door. And by smiling, I mean not smiling. Unfortunately, reeling in the madness that was lost baggage claim, Julia forgot her passport and important documents in the taxi cab that brought her to the university. It was at this point we recognized that Turkey was severely rejecting our presence.

We finally went back to the apartment, and worked on an appropriate Salvador Dali puzzle until our hunger overwhelmed us and we wandered out onto the street in hopes of finding nutrition. Of course, this adventure was in vain, and we ended the night watching the trashmen take away garbage bags as we spun around on the adjacent playground, cursing our existence.

Off to a rockin start.