There might not be dessert after a Turkish meal, but there will always—always—be çay. In a diminutive, handleless, tulip-shaped glass, you lift it by the rim, careful not to burn your fingers, and slurp as a sign of satisfaction. Some say leaving the teaspoon inside the glass signals a call for seconds, and resting it facedown across the top means you’ve had enough (typically after thirds). Adding two sugar cubes is normal, though I personally take mine black, much to the chagrin of Turks (and Albanians; çay—or çaj, as it’s spelled in Kosovo—is just as essential to daily life there).
Black-leaf tea from Trabzon or Rize along the Black Sea is best, brewed loosely in a double-decker kettle over a gas stove. Pour a few tablespoons of concentrated tea into your tulip glass, fill the rest with the boiling water, and let sugar cubes dissolve with a clink-clank swirl of the teaspoon. Then sip. It’s chock-full of caffeine, but it’s culturally appropriate to drink it at ten in the evening.
When çay no longer stifles your yawns, you’ll tap off with a whole clove, sucking the flavor clean off the seed. This cleanses the palate, freshens your breath, and tastes like Thanksgiving. Pop a clove in your mouth, and suck until the flavor dissipates, then put the remnant spice on the saucer. Do it over the years, and it’ll taste like Turkey.
Near the end of our week, we make a spur-of-the-moment trip a few hours east to see some ancient ruins. We’d been to Ephesus, Pergamon, and Smyrna while we lived in Turkey, and we want to check off a few more sites. If we swing through Philadelphia en route to Laodicea, we’ll have six of the seven ancient churches mentioned in St. John’s book of Revelation to our name. All of them are near Izmir.
We dash north to Manisa and drive by the scant Philadelphian ruins, which are now sandwiched between two modern apartment complexes; then we veer southeast to Laodicea, where the archaic city displays a vast acreage of crumbling marble columns, derelict roads, and piles of stone blocks. While we’re here, we visit cotton-white calcified pools of Pamukkale and the ancient ruins of Hierapolis, a spa town from the Roman Empire.
The kids play tag next to ancient marble columns while Kyle plays with his camera and I journal.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” I hear in Tate’s voice. I look up, and she’s holding her face, bent over and crumbling in pain. Reed stands next to her, apologizing and worried. We rush over.
“What happened?” Kyle asks, pulling Tate’s hands away from her face. She’s in crying hysterics, unable to answer.
“We were playing tag, and my head bonked her mouth,” explains Reed. “I’m so sorry. Tate, are you okay? I’m so sorry.” He’s holding his head in pain.
Her bottom two teeth have chipped off their tops. We search the grass in vain—they’ve flung who knows where, mingling with pebbles and ancient rubble. There might be teeth a thousand years old here too. We’re near the end of our trip, so close to finishing without needing medical attention, but alas, we did not succeed. My role shifts from explorer to parent; my afternoon’s focus is now how to handle missing teeth bits. I am awakened from the dreamlike state that comes from wandering ancient ruins.
We find a dentist in Izmir who speaks English and can see a new patient at a moment’s notice. The next morning, we’re at his office, filling out medical forms and answering dental history questions.
A man in jeans and a white doctor’s jacket walks into the waiting room, hand out to shake ours. “Hi—my name’s Trent. Come on back.”
Tate, Kyle, and I follow him, and the front receptionist promises to entertain the boys with toys. Tate settles into the dentist’s chair, and he peers into her mouth.
“You guys traveling?” he asks.
“Yes,” I answer. “But we used to live here.”
“Where are you from?”
“The States. Oregon, mostly.”
“I’m from Washington!” he says. “Been here for a few years now, though.”
He raises the dental chair and stands up for a better look.
“What brings you to Turkey?” Kyle asks.
“My wife’s Turkish,” Trent says, “and she missed home. We lived in Spokane for a while, but American culture just got too hectic for her.”
He presses a button on a phone. “Hey, babe, mind bringing back some çay?” He looks at us. “Want some çay?”
“Uh, sure,” I answer.
A few minutes later, a woman comes in with a tray holding four tulip glasses of çay and introduces herself as Trent’s wife.
“She’s filling in for my assistant,” he says, as he slides over a tray of tools to begin work in Tate’s mouth. “She’s out again somewhere. Where is she, honey?” “She’s protesting something downtown,” his wife says. “She says she’ll be in tomorrow.”
He laughs. “She’s always protesting something.” He takes a sip of çay and continues working.
“Do you want Kyle and me to . . . leave?” I ask.
“Oh no, you’re fine,” Trent says. “It’s way more laid-back here. Just hang out, keep me company. Tell me about your travels.”
We tell him about our family, our work, where we’ve been.
“So great. What a great experience.” He lights up a screen above Tate’s head and shows us a photo of her teeth, before and after. “Almost done.”
“Wow, you’re quick,” Kyle says.
“Well, I have a light day, so you caught me at a good time.”
He cleans up, gives us a card for his brother, a dentist in Washington, and tells us to call him if we ever need dental work in his area.
“Do you miss working in the States?” Kyle asks him. Trent laughs.
“Nah, no way. It’s so much easier being a dentist here. Almost no red tape. My work is straightforward. I get paid less, but it means I don’t have to charge patients out the wazoo for my work. Means I sleep better at night.”
We thank him for his pristine work on Tate’s teeth and for his astoundingly low rates.
“Anytime,” he says. “Hey—I got a question. Has the tooth fairy visited your family on the trip? What kind of money did she bring you?”
We laugh, and we tell him how often she’s visited us. Between Tate and Reed, she’s brought Chinese quai, Thai baht twice, Australian dollars, South African rand, euros from France, and, as of yesterday morning, Turkish lira.
“That’s amazing. And amazing she knew where to find your teeth. I guess she knows home is wherever you are.”
Five years ago, we made a home in Turkey. It’s not home now, but I like to think she’s somewhere in the mix—together with my twenty-two other homes. She is a part of the foundation, a stud, perhaps a rafter. She is a small part of the sticks and bricks of home, a home taking shape somewhere in the world. Home—impossible to locate on a map.
20
GERMANY
Like many Americans, Kyle and I have German blood running thick through our veins. Oxenreider means more or less what you’d think it means: someone who clears fields with oxen. I’m told my maiden name, Henegar, evolved long ago from Heineken, and it finds its origins in a keg of German beer (there’s a Henninger lager, another derivative of the name). My father is full-blooded German, and my grandfather’s mother’s maiden name was even the word German. Sausage and sauerkraut are coded into our DNA.
We land in Munich after a quick flight from Izmir, pick up a new rental car, then pick up Kyle’s parents, who have jumped the pond for a visit.
It’s our first morning in Bavaria, and five seconds after gathering my things out of the car to head down the squeaky-clean streets of Munich, Finn has disappeared. Panic sets in. He was just here; he can’t have gone far. I find him ten feet down the road, standing on a windowsill four feet off the ground.
“Dude! How on earth did you get up there?” I say. “And get down—you’re not supposed to be staring in people’s windows.” The window’s shutters are open, and he’s peering into the house.
“It’s okay,” I hear in German-accented English from the other side. Four teenage boys are playing foosball. “H
e’s just watching. We don’t mind.”
They continue playing and pay him no attention. We watch a few more seconds, say Auf Wiedersehen, then head to the science museum with the grandparents.
Bavaria is Germany’s most German province. Lederhosen, glockenspiel, the mammoth clock celebrating the wedding of the duke who founded the nearby famous Hofbrauhaus, Oktoberfest—all these hail from here. We walk Munich’s cobblestone streets, climb church towers, and sample giant pretzels for two days, then leave town for the countryside.
While in Italy, Dan and Bethany recommended a theme park in Bavaria. I balked at the idea, shuddering at the thought of commercialized, concrete-ridden parks full of overstimulating noise and movement. I’m a poor poker player, and my face tipped Bethany off. She smiled, said, “Oh no, it’s not like a regular American theme park. Trust me—this is a good one.”
“Is it worth the money?” I asked her. For much less money, we could have an actual local experience, and not a manicured, prepackaged, branded one trapped in a theme park.
“It’s only like ten euro each,” she said. “Totally reasonable. And the food is really good too. Just trust me.”
Fifty bucks for our entire family is a steal, and Dan and Bethany haven’t yet steered us wrong. We decide to visit Freizeitpark Ruhpolding.
Kyle drives us through idyllic Alps-infused Bavarian countryside to a little town hugging the Austrian border, GPS charting a rural route with no theme park in sight, and I’m fairly sure we’re lost. Then I see it—a wooden sign swinging on a pole. A gravel parking lot is tucked into the hillside, and a narrow hiking path disappears into the hills. Arrows on the path point to the park. We zip our jackets and trek uphill, panting to the entrance.
Devoid of primary colors, rubbery walkways, and the stripped natural landscape so common in American theme parks, Freizeitpark Ruhpolding is hewn out of these Bavarian hills. Trees canopy the play areas and slides copy the ebb and flow of the land, resting on hills and letting nature dictate their downward course. I breathe in forest air and exhale worry. Bethany was right.
There are vintage carnival rides and a roller coaster, but the park is mostly wooden climbing structures, monstrous tire swings, zip lines, and merry-go-round discs set at an angle on a hillside, devoid of handles and safety rails. The kids jump with abandon in a ball pit crammed full of other kids. I haven’t seen a ball pit in the States outside a therapy clinic in years.
“This place is the best!” Finn trills as he whips down a slide in a felted toboggan.
Some parents are playing with their children, zipping in tree houses and besting them at skeeball and tin can–shooting games. Many more are seated on decks outside cafés, sipping beer and coffee and quietly chatting. All kids are free to wander. Ours join them.
We play with the kids at first, whooshing down precipitous metal slides and screaming with them. We spin in a ride that whirls backward at such breakneck speeds that I make my body a seat belt for Finn for fear he’ll careen out of our shared seat. Later, when Kyle and I tire, we soak in Bavarian sunshine on the wooden deck, nursing drinks and watching the kids gallivant.
We leave at closing time and make the hillside stroll downward. On the way, I instinctively grab Reed’s hand. He’s my wild child, a boy who prefers to sit upside down to hear a story, who dances down the sidewalk and spins circles in the produce aisle.
“Hey, Mom,” Reed says, voice quivering, “did you notice you’re always grabbing my hand?”
“Well, I just want you to be safe,” I say, loosening my grip. I am called out.
“But I’m seven now. I know I’m a kid, but sometimes when you hold my hand like this, it feels like you don’t trust me.” His face crumples with tears.
Last week in Turkey, Tate and I were waiting in the car while Kyle and Reed ran across the street to take a photo of him in front of the hospital where he was born. We were reminiscing about the trip, the freedom she felt to go alone to the bakery in Cadenet, to swim by herself in the community pool across the street from our Thai guesthouse, to stroll the acreage of the Pasignano farmhouse in Italy with Abbie.
“If we were still living in Turkey, would I be allowed to run errands on my own?” she asked.
“Yep,” I answered her. I remembered watching eight-year-olds run into the corner store from our apartment balcony, three-year-old Tate begging me to let her join them. Soon enough, you will, I’d answer.
Tate sighed. “I really wish kids were allowed to do that kind of stuff in America. We should tell the president to make it a law so that kids have more freedom and adults aren’t so nervous all the time.”
I remember this conversation, and stop on the Bavarian trail back to the parking lot and look Reed in the eye. “I don’t mean to treat you like you’re little. I want to show you that I trust you. Because you are a good kid. You’re a fantastic kid.”
“Mom—I have something to tell you,” Reed says. He breathes deep and wipes tears running down his face. “I’ve been almost around the whole world now, and I’ve done a good job. I haven’t gotten lost or gotten hurt. I feel like I’m growing up.” He pauses. “Do you think you can stop holding my hand so much?”
I look down at our hands; I’m still holding on and Reed is cupping his palm free. I release my fingers and he slides his hand in his jacket.
“I love you, bud,” I say, messing his hair.
“Love you too,” he replies, and runs ahead.
Uhldingen-Mühlhofen is so difficult for us to say, that between Kyle and me, we default to a butchered nickname: Uberlingen-Dinglehopper. We snicker childishly at the highway exit and entrance signs declaring Ausfahrt and Einfahrt. I love that the word for airplane is flugzeug, which literally translates to “fly-thing.” The word for speed limit is geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung. German amuses.
We want to revel in more Bavarian countryside, so at the last second, we book a guesthouse in Uhldingen-Mühlhofen, the miniature village along the Bodensee lake. Along the way, we take ausfahrts to villages that sound even mildly interesting, soaking up our rental car before returning it in Paris. We need coffee this morning, having spent a day at Freizeitpark Ruhpolding yesterday, and Uhldingen-Mühlhofen is still two hours away. We approach a road sign for the village of Landsberg am Lech, and it looks pleasant enough from a distance. Italy is less than two hundred miles south, but it’s no small feat to find a decent cup of brew in Germany. We cross our fingers, hope for the best, and make the exit.
I find directions to an open bakery on my phone app, and as Kyle searches for a parking spot, I read about this unassuming village.
“Oh, my goodness,” I gasp.
“What?” Kyle asks.
“This is where Hitler wrote Mein Kampf,” I say, scrolling Wikipedia.
“Whoa. Are you serious?”
“And this is said to be where the Hitler Youth first formed.” I survey the village’s town square, with its innocent houses and pink-tinted shops. One of the vilest persons born into this human experience wrote his foundational ideas in this pocket-sized place. I see no signs commemorating this history.
I scroll through my phone and read more as I wait for our coffee order at the bakery. Landsberg am Lech is also where the United States Army liberated a concentration camp with the help of one of their soldiers named Tony Bennett, and it’s where Johnny Cash was stationed with the air force. The village’s medieval wall is still erect, cannonball still stuck on one side.
I return to the car, coffees in hand, and I think about the world’s other Landsberg am Lechs. How many random villages down this street hold the weight of history in their annals? How many layers of civilization are we driving over, roads so old they’re too deep to unearth? Twenty, like Izmir’s? What other ausfahrts hold secrets, hinges that alter the trajectory of global saga—not just in Germany, but in Italy, Croatia, Morocco, even in the States? How many shoulders do I stand on, their spirits whispering around me as I walk through Venetian alleys, Cadenet’s market, Kenyan fields, and l
ittle, unpredictable Landsberg am Lech?
Tonight we tuck the kids in at our new guesthouse in Uhldingen-Mühlhofen, where we watch the sun set from our backyard over the Bodensee, Switzerland waving from the other side. We have no agenda here, other than one final week to catch up on school and work before heading northwest, into northern France and onward to London. The last time we stopped for any length of time was in Cadenet, almost two months ago now. We need a breather before our journey’s final push. I can already see a pinhole-sized light at the end of the tunnel.
The kids’ grandparents are with us, and it’s our duty to let them watch the kids while we go on a much-needed date. The last time we went out was Lourmarin, eight weeks ago. Kyle opens the gate in the backyard, and we cross the street, walk hand in hand along the Bodensee. Earlier today we spotted a pub with outdoor seating in the microscopic town square, overlooking the waterfront. Our kids played in the grass while German teenagers ate picnic lunches nearby, and we eyed the pub like a beacon of light.
Tonight, we stroll down the darkened street that leads to the town square, order lagers from the smoky bar, and zip our jackets as we cradle drinks and wind whips our hair.
“Babe—we’ve done it,” Kyle says, taking a slug of beer.
“We did it,” I answer. I clink his glass in cheer.
“Around the world in one direction. Who’da thought?”
“That it was doable?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “That we’d do it without killing each other.”
“A worthy endeavor,” I answer. We clink glasses again.
He pauses. “Well, we’re not done yet. I guess there are still a few weeks to kill each other.”
At Home in the World Page 21
