A Ferengi in a Strange Land

Growing up with Sci-Fi loving parents like mine, you not only are subject to strange creatures on television, but you begin to love and cherish the characters.  There are, however, a number of characters that will make your skin crawl and if you ever came upon one in real life, you might want to turn around and walk away...very quickly. One such creature is the Ferengi.  It's not because they'll bite your head off, but it's because they are greedy, misogynistic, and generally untrustworthy.  In general, they're a nuisance.  They are all about commerce and money making, it's all about the bottom line and doing whatever they need to do to increase their profits. 

A Ferengi:  Isn't he dashing?

So, imagine my surprise to find the word "Ferengi" in a Novel about Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk.  I don't think I'd ever really questioned where the name came from, just figured it was made up.

But it turns out that it's an Arabic word for European Traders (or Westerners in General).

Great. This means I'm going to be a Ferengi in Istanbul.

 

Jean Luc Picard does NOT approve.

WHAT THE CARP AM I DOING?

You know that moment when your senses are on high alert and you simply stop doing anything?  My counselor said, generally, when people are afraid, they will take one of two actions: a) They will RUN or act quickly in some soft of way or (less likely) b) they will freeze and do nothing.

So here I am, I finally have the information on how much my tax return is (not as much as I was hoping, damned tax brackets), and there's a really good price on a flight to Istanbul.

In the meantime, there was just a suicide bombing at the Embassy in Ankara (not that I'm going to Ankara anyways) AND a young woman just one year older than me (who was travelling alone) was just found murdered in Istanbul.  Commence family and friend panic which = Jessica panic.

So I'm sitting here, frozen by fear of money and terrorists, doing nothing and wondering if I should go someplace else. I talked to my mom who made some suggestions, but nothing is jumping out at me. NOTHING.  I've been thinking about Turkey since last May, so maybe I'm just too focused. And of course, I could go another time, but really, when will I ever REALLY have the $$ and when will it REALLY be safe to go anywhere?

So I booked it.  Yep. Just did it. Decided not to let the fear make me frozen.  Can't wait to see what my counselor says about that.

Am I afraid? Absolutely!  I've had had so many friends tell me how brave I am for going alone, they would never do that!  (You hear that enough and you start to doubt yourself pretty quickly).

But am I excited? EVEN BIGGER ABSOLUTELY.

So, here goes the newest adventure in Jessica Kimmet's crazy life.

Well, here it goes on May 30-June 11 anyways :-)