Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

My patience was tested this week, and I failed. After spending a few days with Virginia in Turkey, we bought our bus tickets to go from Istanbul to Varna, Bulgaria. The man who sold us the tickets was nice, and Virginia was there to interpret, which I clearly took for granted. We were instructed to jump on this service bus that would take us where we needed to go. So the service bus took us to a nice little terminal, where we waited 2 hours for our bus.

As we were starting to get a little nervous, 8 minutes after our bus was supposed to leave, a kind man selling roasted chestnuts looked at our tickets and took me into the station. Everyone was looking worried…

It turns out we were at the wrong station. I was able to figure out that much. They told us to get on another service bus, but that’s all I could figure out. A bus to where? When would we get there, and when would we be able to catch a bus to Varna? Conveniently, nobody spoke English, and I don’t speak a lick of Turkish. I sat on the service bus and prayed for patience. I couldn’t handle it much longer, so I wandered around the terminal for a while asking everyone if they spoke English, and my frustration grew and grew. Finally, as I had resigned hope and was ready to get back on the service bus, somebody said “Where do you need to go?” The English language never sounded so sweet.

It turns out we got on another bus that beat our bus to a truck stop and dropped us off, while calling the other bus that would pick us up. Turks are extremely accommodating, as Virg told us, and their kindness was a huge blessing. I’m such a talker that it drive me insane not to be able to communicate. That small taste of hopelessness and frustration made me realize that I will be an extremely motivated language learner when I land somewhere long-term. Or maybe even for the summer. Pray for me as I start trying to learn Romanian so I can somewhat communicate and not find myself so completely out of control and hopeless again.