I have made it two weeks. Crammed into those two weeks have been a few days in Toulouse, a morning and afternoon in Paris, not enough time in Cologne, a missed wedding in Vienna, an escape from a probably harmless couch-surfing host in Split (please appreciate the appropriateness of having done so in a city named Split), a stumble through Dubrovnik and Montenegro and now to my present demise: Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. 

There is much to be caught up with regarding my adventures. I haven’t shared most of my stories. Like how I joined a small group of archeology students my first night in Split. I don’t remember his name, but he rescued me from a conversation I was not entirely enthusiastic having with two much older Croatian men. It was not unpleasant, but I can only humor old men and their not-funny stories for only so long. He turned out to be on the opposite spectrum of age, maybe 21? Either way, there were four of them, three from Minnesota, the fourth from New York. I could sense resentment from one of the young girls for throwing off the perfect 2:2 ratio of boy to girl. I learned not only that night that conservative America is not bestly represented through Fox news, but also that my body is not capable of drinking multiple pints of beer.

My second night could not have gone more opposite. I returned to the same place. A famous part of Diocletian's palace, live music plays each night while locals and tourists sit on the ancient-ruin steps listening, sometimes singing, and of course drinking. The second night it was a male-female duo. They covered 4-non blondes and Eric Clapton. This group was more boisterous the second night, even if the music was more tame. A group of 8 large British men were largely responsible for the added energy--even if the music score in the background was Tears in Heaven. The music finished. I learned these guys were all from Windsor, grew up together since boy hood and were celebrating one of their friends 40th birthday. They invited me to join them--and so I did. Mostly because I thought it made for an awesome story of how I went pub crawling in Croatia with 8 middle-aged British men. 

I am learning to be more open to people. Out of fear of misleading or misrepresenting intentions, believing that I was at fault if kindness and friendliness was mistaken for “I want to sleep with you”, I closed myself down from meeting mostly anyone of the male genre. I would put on a cold facade the moment someone approached me. I was lead to believe it was my fault if people found me attractive. An anomaly to me as I was personally never able to see it--the attraction that is. For the majority of my life I thought I was the “nice personality” type, or perhaps the “funny one”, but certainly not the pretty one. It is unfortunate it took leaving my husband to realize that that is perhaps not entirely true (and I’m not blaming him for that at all, it just seemed to happen that way).

Christianity also served a great evil in this for me. I believe the moral codes of religion in general do. The idea that a woman is at fault for a man being physically turned on?? This is the slippery slope to the rape culture we see on display in American culture today and the public shaming of victims... Oh how many times have I heard and even taught that we are not to “arouse or awaken love before it so desires”, or to “not cause anyone to stumble”. It is wrong and it disgusts me.

As is with most of my writing, this was not my intended direction. I am passionate about this subject and with most things I am passionate about, will likely jumble up my views and express them all wrong. 

My flight to Cairo has successfully been made-finally. The 7pm arrival time has become a 2am one. I was given access to the business lounge where I drank aged scotch and pretended to be sophisticated while I chatted with friends online. I was oddly outnumbered if we were to go by who had which sex organ, as well if we were to go by who was drinking. It is probably a safe generalization to say that it was pretty much me and a large fancy roomful of muslim men-- and it was me, the little blonde girl drinking the whisky while the bearded men drank tea.

I was interrupted by breakfast. These short international flights are awesome--we get fed, and fed well. And Cherry juice!! Why do we not drink more cherry juice?? we really should. I think I am about to land. I made a friend and possible travel guide sitting next to me. He is a scuba diver and will help me organize my Egyptian adventure. I am really excited. I am certain my best adventures are yet to happen. weeeeeee!