Wanderlust
When I was 19, I was supposed to go to the University of Alberta, study piano, and become a conductor. In an uncharacteristically defiant act against my Type A nature, I didn’t go. Two days prior to the university’s deadline to confirm my enrollment, I moved in with some friend and got a job in a restaurant called the Pony Corral in Winnipeg, so that I could backpack my way around Turkey and what was then still referred to as Eastern Europe.
Fisherman’s Bastion, Budapest
My adventure began in Vienna, followed by Prague (two cities I’ve since lived in), then a quick trip down to Budapest to catch my flight to Istanbul. After a month in Turkey, I flew to Paris, took a detour through the Black Forest to check in with my aunt and uncle, and finished in balmy Spain. Not knowing how to prepare for a trip such as this, I chose not to prepare at all, aside from arranging my arrival in Vienna by snail mail (!) and scheduling my return flight home for late April.
Perhaps not being the most typical 19-year-old backpacker, my main plan was to visit as many Classical and traditional composer landmarks and concerts as possible. I felt so fortunate to move through the very same spaces where great musicians had gone before me. By freely retracing their steps, I discovered that art music has a smell to it: incense, cigarettes, coal, dust, coffee, pastries. And by sniffing those same aromas the great masters themselves would have smelled, I felt for the first time that their music was still truly alive.
Tynska Cathedral, Prague. I saw many concerts in this square and in the surrounding buildings. They smelled like coal, mulled wine and smažený sýr - fried cheese!
Naturally, a trip so vaguely planned did have its share of uncomfortable moments. The most memorable one was arriving in a German train station at 11pm on a Sunday, only to discover that the hostel, along with every other affordable hotel, was already closed for the night. So, I did what any other self-respecting backpacker would do: went to the bank. No, not to withdraw cash, to while away the night hours in its alcove until the city decided to wake up.
But, for every agony, there were unfold amazing, unimaginable glories to behold.
Take Goreme, Turkey, for example. Someone in Istanbul had told me the landscape was amazing there; so I boarded a bus, and 12 hours later, I was viewing what looked like dwellings built into the landscape of the moon. It was breathtaking.
Goreme, Turkey - I used this free image I found online, because, come on, I was a backpacker with a bad camera, and limited film (remember when you actually had to develop pictures at the store?). Plus, this is an amazing shot!
The next day, wandering around the countryside, I inadvertently traipsed through a nice soldier’s garden. He kindly guided me to the next village, pulling me up several steep cliffs along the way, and told me that while I was in the area, I really ought to check out a really impressive nearby museum.
Mustafa’s Garden
When I arrived in Derinkuyu the next day, I wasn’t entirely sure what this museum would look like. I saw a small entranceway that had a sign and an official looking person charging admission. It didn’t look very remarkable to me. But the fee was very low, so I bought a ticket and walked through the stone entranceway, and began winding my way down flight after flight of stairs.
Along the way, I noticed some other German tourists had hired a tour guide. By this point in my travels, I’d become pretty good at eavesdropping when it came to guided tours, so I managed to catch snippets about this being the main air shaft, that being a toilet, over there was a kitchen.
Around the third or fourth floor underground, I finally realized that I was in an underground city that the inhabitants of the area had built long ago to hide themselves from their enemies. And all you could see from the horizon was that same simple stone entranceway I myself had used to enter the complex. I spent the rest of that day walking around in a daze, amazed by what I had seen.
After my return to Canada, having carefully saved my ticket, I looked up Derinkuyu in the encyclopedia (because google was not yet a thing). Without any photos of that day, I started to wonder if it had all been a dream. But there it was, in print. Reading about it, I became even more in awe of that incredible wonder I had chanced upon only a few months earlier, all because I had been out for a walk, exploring my amazing environment, trampling through Mustafa’s garden, all because someone said, hey, you should go visit Goreme, after I’d ended up in Turkey; all because I chose the path that was least expected and bought a traveller’s backpack instead of a university student’s futon.
To this day, I am intensely curious about what might lie around the next corner – what if I turn back to early and miss seeing the most incredible thing I’ve never seen? What if I miss the sight of a medieval castle being lit up at night? Tasting the city’s most famous street food? Feeling the way snow crunches between my boot and a cobblestone path? Hearing a real nightingale for the first time? Smelling music’s unique scent in its temporary concert hall?
Though the choice to go backpacking was admittedly the unexpected one for me, it liberated my sense of adventure, my curiosity, my craving for the unknown. Maybe it changed me, or maybe I was always destined to have these types of adventures. I am certain now that I wouldn’t have it any other way.
