Translated by SFT
After two hours' delay at the Miami International Airport, we were finally on our way to Turkey. Twenty-two hours later, we safely arrived at Ankara International Airport. John, who worked in the airport, invited us to have tea in his shop after we assembled our bicycles. The gas station worker also offered us tea after we filled up the gas tank for our portable stove. When we woke up from a nap on the road side, an older man, Eyup, made a hand gesture of a tea kettle. I guessed he was going to treat us tea, too.
Eyup asked us if we needed any help, so I told him that we needed a place to camp. Eyup, a construction company owner, let us camp in an empty spot of his company yard in addition to treating us 3 meals a day. You guessed it! There’s tea at every meal.
We communicated to each other through Google translation. They wrote down Turkish and I jotted down Chinese. Even though sometimes the exact meaning was lost in the translation, we got the general ideas and had fun chatting.
I had learned a couple of Turkish words during the 2 days I spent with them. ‘Anlamadi’ (I don’t understand.) is the word I used most often.
Metin, a worker for Eyup, brought us to meet his friends. If you have a Turkish friend, then all his friends become yours, too. We played soccer and danced together. Yi helped prepare dinner. Yes, we had tea. My friends, when you come to Taiwan, I will also invite you to, ‘Have tea, please.’
