OFF TO TURKEY -- Part One

November 06, 2014

My husband died four months ago and as a challenge to my
newfound independence and a means of getting off the end of the couch, I signed up for a trip to Turkey sponsored by our local university.

I didn't especially want to go to Turkey. I'd rather be off to Spain
or Scotland or on a trip to Holland in tulip time. But this trip is
local and I thought I'd rather be with a group of Vermonters than
with alumni from, say, my Ivy League university. This thinking was
so wrong. The Vermonters, though neighbors, will also be strangers. I'll be just as much an outsider with them as I'd be
in any other travel group.

I've looked at maps and weather charts and researched a phone call app for my iphone. On line, I look at Today's Zaman, the English-language newspaper published in Istanbul. I read about the Kurds. I'll read Orhan Pamuk.

As suggested by the tour planners at UVM, I ordered plane tickets
via a local travel agent. There is a direct flight to Istanbul from Boston and group transportation will be arranged from here to there.

All of this sounds easy and for a day or so, I felt better about the trip. Then I got email from one of the planners strongly suggesting I get travel insurance which I always do anyway. I called the agent and she made me understand that because I am so old, the insurance is going to cost a lot. No pre-existing conditions, she stressed.

Then there came another email from a planner saying I definitely should have medical evacuation insurance. OK. The travel agent will take care of it. "Just do what you need to do, you've got my credit card," I told her. OK. All this insurance will cost just about what the air ticket costs.

I slowly understood what was going on. By May, when the trip
happens, I will be 81. There is nothing, nothing that can slow
down an ambitious trip more than having to wait for some
geriatric crock to catch up. These people must be having fits
about me being with them. What if she can't do stairs?  What if she can't deal with her own luggage, can't walk a block, can't, can't, can't? The poor things. I understand their concerns and I begin to
feel defensive and unsettled.  

Of course, nobody has actually said anything. They'll get a chance to meet me next Wednesday at our first group meeting when we
hand over our passports for Turkish visas to be arranged. What if the Turks won't give me a visa because I am so old?