As I’m writing this post, to be published after my return to Sofia, I am sitting in the Tea Garden of a beautiful holiday village in Bodrum, Turkey. It is close to 10:00 pm, but the air is warm and smells faintly salty, like the Aegean sea, and also slightly perfumey, infused with the scent of the blooming bougainvillea trees.
It’s one of my last nights here, and my close friend from college, Joerose, who I came here with, has already flown back to London. I miss her already, of course; five short days are not nearly enough to catch up properly, talk enough and laugh enough, mend broken hearts and remind each other that life is beautiful. Yet, I am not lonely. The tea garden is alive even at this time, with people playing backgammon on the small wooden tables and drinking their Turkish tea served in little glass cups. I sip my tea, too, and I am content to gaze at the lanterns lit around us, the calm sea and the ships that are so beautifully lit at night like they’re coming out of a fairy tale. The staff talks to me, and I am thinking that I really like the friendliness of these Turkish people. Even though it is their job to be friendly to the tourists, their attention and smiles never seem fake.
I also think about how this vacation was exactly what I needed and, therefore, completely wonderful. A good mix of relaxation, excitement, sightseeing, and spending time with a close friend, my time here has flown by. I tend to be a worrier – a trait of mine that I am trying to work on, albeit not entirely successfully, so it is with great pleasure that I discover that in between lounging on the beach, parasailing, touring tombs carved in rocks and beaches where giant turtles lay their eggs, and eating insane quantities of crispy sweet watermelon, I have forgotten to worry. Now that’s what I call a good time.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that even remotely knows me that I have also taken about a million photos, all sunny and beachy and looking like they belong on the cover of a travel magazine. Of course, I love the ones that document what we did and how much fun we had on this trip. There is another batch of photos, though, that is all about the feeling of a place, those small details that string together like the beads on a necklace to create the jewel that is the atmosphere here. The straw umbrellas and the stripy shadows that they throw on your skin, the white villas surrounded by blooming trees, the footsteps on the beach and the radiant blue of the sea. Those are the ones that I want to share here, as those are the photos that I believe will make you close your eyes and, just for a second, feel like you are really here with me.
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