Getting there is half the fun.

Getting there is half the fun. 

You can't get to Istanbul directly from Detroit.

So you have to change planes. And if you're going to change planes, the most fun place to do so is the Amsterdam Schirphol airport. Besides having the best food choices in all the world's airports (imagine hand-cut smoked salmon that's the best after crappy Delta meals and seven-hours in the air), you can go a local fresh market, buy cut tulips (fresh and ersatz wooden), lug home an enormous wheel of Gouda and buy a plastic orange watch, because you forgot your watch at home while scrambling to get out of town. 

The personnel at the airport aren't so friendly, however. While trying to find a place to sit (since my gate wasn't open two hours before my connecting flight), I was snarled at by a worker, despite my sweetest smile and obvious lack of where-to-sit knowhow. 

Arriving in Turkey, however was a breeze. Fast through Passport Control (barely a glance at my online visa, printed in triplicate just in case) and not even a peek at my carry-on (that's all I take, no matter the length of the journey).

I waited for my friend, Adina, to arrive from L.A., which was no problem because people watching is the other half of the fun. The lady in the crazy-tall spiked heels and mini-skirt kept my attention until a flock of women covered head to toe in black "chador" with only their eyes peeking through had me transfixed.

Adina had arranged for a ride to our hotel. We were picked-up, finally, after 15-minutes. Our driver drove to a cell-phone waiting area and said we needed to wait 15-minutes more to pick up another group of passengers. He sat on a small plastic stool and proceeded to sip tea with others for 20-minutes. Finally I asked him to take us back to the airport so we could take a taxi instead. He hopped back into the van, we picked up the other passengers (who also had been waiting 15-minutes for US) and we were on the road. Moral of the story? These people were in no hurry -- if I hadn't opened my mouth, we would have continued to wait while our driver drank tea. 

Why OyVeyIzmir?

Oy vey (Yiddish) אױ װײ), oy vay, or just oy — or even more elaborately oy vey iz mir, oh weh! — is an exclamation of dismay or exasperation meaning something like "oh, pain" or "woe is me." -- Wikipedia

Oy Vey=Yiddish=Jewish=Israel

Iz mir=Izmir=A city in Turkey (located in the Anatolia province of Turkey (formally known as Smyrna), on the coast of the Gulf of Izmir, it is the second (or third, depending on the source), most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul.

My trip to Turkey and Israel began as a way to mend a broken heart. A best friend had recently died, and in my time of mourning, some weeks later a relationship of nearly two years ended so abruptly, I still find myself replaying the details, wondering what and where it all went wrong. 

Suddenly single, cynical and disillusioned I needed to regroup, repair and restore. Although I've often thought of myself as "the luckiest girl in the world," I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and often just a mere word or thought away from tears. 

Among my ways of distraction was to do what I've always done, but in double time -- keep myself as busy as possible. This meant working harder than ever, playing more and going away.

I've been a lot of places around the world, often multiple times. But I'd never been to Turkey and I had been to Israel so long ago (nearly 35-years ago -- for six-weeks one summer as a high school senior), that I hardly remembered it. 

Turkey was definitely on my bucket list. My paternal grandparents, Sephardic Jews, lived in Istanbul before moving to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the early 1920s. 

If I searched really hard I could find where my paternal great-grandmother, Lea Franco Rabishovsky (or RABISCHOFFSKY) was buried. Born in Bulgaria, Lea died of typhus soon after giving birth to her youngest daughter, Rosa, my father's aunt, just following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in World War I and just before the start of Turkey's War for Independence. Rosa, now in her later 90s, is the only living link to this Turkish heritage. 

My maternal grandfather spent his last few years in Tel Aviv after living in Brazil for nearly 40 years (he and my grandmother were from Poland). It was his dream to be there, though he died at the young age of 68. He is buried in Holon Cemetery, near Tel Aviv. 

So, there are people to see, but as important, things to do, and eat, which is always important. 

And away I go.