2 Weekends Ago

I actually jumped from a moving city bus 2 weeks ago. Quite an adventure, it was. Jen, Maddy, Ralph’s stepdaughter Catherine, and I were taking the bus from Karsiyaka into the hip, downtown area of Izmir, called Alsancak, to meet up with a new friend of Jen’s for dinner. The bus pulls up to the curb in Alsancak- it’s our stop. Being the gentleman I am, I let the ladies depart the bus first. I go to exit and the bus suddenly pulls away from the curb as the driver pushes the acceleration pedal down to the floor. Instead of yelling out to him to stop, I figure, hey, the bus isn’t moving THAT fast- let’s jump out! Silly me. So I leap from the top platform of the bus and fly out onto the sidewalk, the bus’ momentum adding to my jump. Fortunately, I land on my feet, but I quasi-land on Catherine and clutch her to keep me from falling into some bushes. Flying out of the bus, she never saw me coming. She feels some guy grabbing her and pulling her down with tremendous force and she instinctively thinks someone is trying to mug or attack her on the city sidewalk. She let out a yell and I ended up scaring the living daylights out of her.

After a moment she realized it was me, and not some shady alley denizen, but her heart rate must have doubled in a matter of milliseconds. On the bus ride over to Alsancak, Catherine had just been talking about muggers in Izmir and how she felt certain parts of the city weren’t that safe. And no sooner than walking off the bus does she think she’s getting attacked by someone literally flying into her from out of nowhere. And my heart rate, well that took quite a hop, too. The bus wasn’t moving that fast when I jumped, but just that little bit of velocity added a surprisingly tremendous force to my jump, and it almost felt like I flew off a ski jump- I got some serious hang time there.

The whole thing was absolutely hysterical to me. I started laughing uncontrollably after I landed on the sidewalk, and then whenever I thought of it throughout the night, I’d start laughing in fits. Just writing this entry I completely cracked up 5 separate times.

Later that night we went out to dinner and then we ambled down the alleyway to a nightclub. We all had to pay a 10 Yeni Turkish Lira (YTL) cover, but we each got a free drink with the entrance fee. I wouldn’t have even got in unless I were with a group of 4 girls, as there were several guys waiting outside the door while I walked past them as I entered. We got in there, and the place was JAMMED. There was a really good cover band playing popular American rock music and the singer had a flawless American accent. We made our way to the back and then up a set of stairs to the second floor balcony. It was just as crowded, and when the band played a song the crowd really liked, the balcony started shaking and bouncing up and down. I didn’t pay it any mind, but one of the girls was seriously afraid it was going to collapse.

That all happened on a Saturday night. The evening before Jen, Maddy, and I hosted a party at our apartment for everyone at Isikkent. Maddy sent everyone at school an invitation email over the school network and we expected 30-40 people. When we got home on the service bus that Friday, we employed our cleaning skills on the kitchen, which was desperate for a thorough cleansing. Maddy and I swept and washed in there while Jen rearranged the living room furniture in optimal party mode and gave the carpet a vacuuming.

We had about 30 people over and the party, paking the place, and it was a real success. Everyone brought over a bunch of food and drinks and we had plenty left over when it was all said and done. Ralph, the headmaster, said he’d maybe drop by for an hour or so- he was very insistent that he’d only pop in for a short while. So guess what- he ended up being the second to last last guest leaving! Ahh, Ralph

On Sunday of the same weekend it was a really beautiful day (finally!), so Maddy, Jen and I walked down to the seaside basketball courts to play a little roundball. The courts were full. Luckily, I brought my superdisc Frisbee with me, so we tossed that around instead. It was a lot of fun, and we even got a crowd watching us. It was as if these people had never seen a frisbee before, but apparently frisbee is only a "Beach thing" in Turkey, so when they see someone tossing it around on anything other than sand, it's a real oddity.

Jen's not the best of frisbee throwers, so a few of her errant throws hit cars parked along the road and the frisbee even ended up in the adjacent highway on three occassions. Once, it actually smacked into the windshield of a passing car! If I were the driver and I saw something flying out of nowhere and coming towards my windshield, I probably would have swerved and caused some terrible accident, but the driver simply slowed down, let the frisbee bonk of the glass, and moved on. Fortunately, the frisbee was not run over or harmed in any way. But it was just a beatiful afternoon- running around on the seaside, warm weather, picturesque mountains in the background. I'm looking forward to more of that.