Dear God, Thank you

When we have the best of intentions we are just too scared to realize them. I started to think that I won’t always be young and life won’t always be just about me and my needs, so I decided to take risks every day.

During summer in Lithuania I always visit several festivals. I love live music and meeting new people and festivals are perfect for this. But last year everything seemed the same. Maybe it was the time to explore more.

This Sunday I could just thank God how lucky I was. One of my tasks was to get to festival named Mihalıççık Belediyesi. I had to do this by myself.

Mihalıçcık, is a town and district of Eskişehir Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. According to 2010 census, population of the district is 10,482 of which 3,133 live in the town of Mihalıççık.

I knew that I should take a tram to Otogar (last bus stop) and catch a bus. Fortunately, while waiting for a tram I met Ehmet who could speak in English. On the way we have discussed several topics. The most interesting was that he is from Istanbul but don’t want to live here: “There’s too much of traffics, people and pulse of life. It’s good only for visits.”

He helped me to buy a ticket and invited to spend time together (I had to wait for an hour). Near the Otogar is Kent Park (giant pool/man-made beach), where women beach are seperated from men. But I‘ve already visited it before, so staying in the bus station was way more interesting for me.

I started taking pictures and saw a lot of tulumba tottlisi (doughnuts). I was interested how it‘s called in Turkish because I couldn‘t find it in my dictionary, so I asked the salesman. He not only helped with this tricky word, but also gave it to try for free. Also, there was a boy who served tea in the bus station.

While wandering in station I met nice grandmother Suukman Guungon with whom I had to get to the same bus. The only thing which happens on time there is the­­ busses arrivals. As the bus approached she tried to talk with me, but it was impossible.

The trip was a funny one. Everybody was staring at me. If I had known before, that Turkish think all blonde girls are Russians and call them “Natasha” because their easy ones, I wouldn’t risk so much. But I thought about this kind of attention, so just in case I was wearing trousers.

Moreover, there weren’t enough seats, so several people sat on the chairs. Surprisingly, they still looked happy and chatty. It would definitely be impossible in Lithuania, somebody would really complain.

Happily, one man could speak English. Somehow he learnt language from newspapers and television, so he asked where was I going and gave some instructions to the driver. Lucky again, huh?

When we finally came to the festival popular singer Ramazan Celik was performing. Everybody was crazy, standing on the cars, shouting, dancing together with this star.

Then the son of the bus driver introduced me to Zekeriya Goker and Umit Guven (politicians). Well, they thought that I was a photographer, I tried to explain that I am not, but it was impossible.

They invited to eat together with their families in the forest. I thought that it was nice at first but then everybody started to treat me with food and take pictures, I felt strange and a little bit uncomfortable.

The rest of the time I spent with the family of the driver. His wife, daughters served meal and tried to communicate. 'You're like sister to us', they said. We enjoyed the festival and they helped me to get back home.

Maybe for Turkish people tourists are kind of entertainment to whom they feel respect and try protect.

One quick rather interesting note, when I got on the bus, the only available free seat was next to a man, but the bus driver changed the seats that I would sit with woman.

To sum up, the festival was great because there were no drunk people whereas in back at home in Lithuania there would be plenty of them. Also, Turkish danced a lot – belediye folklor ekibi. I thought it was a traditional dance, but I was told that it was popular to perform in night clubs as well.

Of course, I tasted a lot of different meals as zeytinyagli yaprak dolmasi (grape leaf rolls), differently prepared pilic (chicken), musakka (ratotuille), peynirli pogaca (pie with cheese), cherries (this town is famous for this), gekirdek, Ayran (its way better with salt). Afijet olsun! (Bon appétit!).