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Jim West - an odyssey en route to Turkey>

When I was first shown the list of
countries offered in the Work/Study
Program, my eyes went immediately to Turkey
and I knew that that was the piace for me.
I think I was attracted because I knew so
little about the country—my total
knowledge of it being a few historical
facts and the movie Midnight Express. It
seemed to me it would be a real adventure
exploring this strange land and I was not
disappointed.

The first step in my preparation for the
trip was to orient myself with the history
and culture of the country as best as I
could, and I did my homework in this
department. Although I found it quite

It seemed to me it would be a real
adventure exploring this strange land
and | was not disappointed.

difficult to find good current information
on Turkey, the more I discovered about the
country the more excited I became.

The second step of my preparations was to
familiarize myself with the Turkish language
and this proved to be very difficult. By
the time my departure date rolled around I
was in the possession of a Berlitz phrase
book and knew but a handful of basic words.
I was to regret this lack of even basic
language proficiency many times over the
summer. Although I did pick up a fair bit
of survival Turkish during my stay it would
have been much easier if I had had a good
base and I strongly suggest future
participants work at it before they go. I
found that English was spoken by a
surprising number of Turkish people. It is
the most popular foreign language and most
Turks receive a few years instruction in
it in school. Turks, especially in the
cities, are eager to converse with you to
improve their English.

Getting to Turkey can be moderately
expensive, enjoyable and hassle-free by a
direct flight to Istanbul from an American
or European city. Or, it can be almost
equally expensive and very miserable via
the train from a European centre. I, of

course, chose the latter, as I assumed
that all the trains in Europe were like
the ones I had travelled on before in
Northern Europe, and I figured it would be
an interesting way to spend the fifteen
days I had before my job started. I soon
found out that I was sadly mistaken and
that train travel in Eastern Europe is not
for the squeamish or impatient.

My travel partner, Linda, another
participant in the Turkish program, and I
had a very enjoyable trip from London to
Munich. But I think Linda would agree with
my choice of words when I describe the
remainder of the trip to Istanbul as a
nightmare. Not only are these trains slow,
hot, filthy, hopelessly overcrowded,
without food, water, and proper toilet
facilities, but the various border checks
are invariably at three or four in the
morning and carried out inamost offensive
way. Things grew progressively worse as we
got closer to Istanbul and they came to a
head when we were not so politely thrown
off the train in Bulgaria and had our
tickets invalidated.

Linda and I had inquired over and over
again in Munich as to whether we would
need visas to pass through any of the
Eastern block countries and were assured
repeatedly that they were sold on the
train. Well, we found out that this was
the case, but they only sold visas if they
felt like it and we were removed from the
train.

I soon found out ... that train travel in
Eastern Europe is not for the
squeamish or impatient.

I shall keep my comments on Bulgarian
officials to a minimum, as I am somewhat
biased, but it was a miserable and rather
frightening experience. One of the number
one rules of travelling is to keep your
passport in your possession at all times.
Ours were in the hands of a rude, gun-
toting Bulgarian border guard who, I
gathered from his grunts and growls, was
not particularly fond of North Americans.

CONTINUED ...