Stories

John's on the Bus

"He says we are out of oil," the pretty girl who spoke English told us. "Oil?" "Petrol."

We were out of gas in Turkey,  in the middle of nowhere.

Jim and I had decided to go skiing on the economy plan. We had Friday and Monday off, so we jumped on a bus from Izmir to Bursa after work. We checked into an old ski chalet, famous in its day before the hotels and the tourists moved to the top of the mountain, called Uludag.

The place was still beautiful and lush, with an entrance that spoke of its grandeur and a lobby and bar like nothing I had ever seen in Turkey. The prices were cheap.

We were among the few people in the hotel at the height of the skiing season.

My room was opulent, with a giant four-post oak bed, a four-foot thick feather mattress, and fine Turkish linen sheets. The beautifully enameled claw foot tub was large and held well over three feet of water. The water from the tap was the hottest I had felt since arriving in December.   It looked perfect for sore skiing muscles and proved to be just that.

Morning came early. We ate a breakfast of Kalamata olives, Feta cheese, and Rosehip jam on toasted Turk Ekmek. The Turkish Kahve, which I had only begun to appreciate, went amazingly well with our meal.

We caught a Dolmus or shared taxi up the mountain with other adventurous types and got out at the base of the slopes, at the ski rental place. 

We rented skis, boots, poles, and unlimited lift tickets for three days. Jim watched our kit while I went into the Pro Shop and bought ski pants, and then we jockeyed our way to the T-bar to the top of the intermediate slope. It had been a while since I had been skiing; this was only my second try. I wanted to take it slow.

On the third day, Sunday, the conditions were perfect. By midday, the crowds began to dwindle. As soon as we skied to the bottom, we went right on the t-bar and headed back up. We made so many runs that the staff knew our names and stopped asking to see our lift tickets. We skied well after dark under the lights. It was perfect!

When we turned in our gear and went out front, there wasn't a mini-bus, Dolmus, or car in sight. It was too far to walk to Bursa. The temperature was dropping quickly. Jim had twisted his ankle on his last run and was hobbling around. We had already blown most of our money and couldn't afford a room, much less two rooms for the night.

We decided to go to one of the hotels and see if they could call us some transportation when a small bus came from behind a building. I sprinted after it, got the driver to stop, and asked in my fledgling Turkish for a ride to Bursa.

My Turkish can be amazingly fluent under pressure.

The driver gave me a terse and emphatic Turkish no and started driving.

As I stood there, rejected and freezing, I heard a flood of female Turkish voices, speaking very loudly and quickly, coming from the van. The van stopped. A young man in a ski suit and glasses got out and said, "Gel Gel," Come Come.

I waved for Jim, helped him aboard, and climbed in. We had joined a group of friends from Izmit headed back to college after a weekend on the mountain. There were five guys and six pretty girls. The girl sitting next to me, Gamze, which means Dimples, was stunning.

As we headed down the mountain, we talked, they talked, and one of the girls translated. They seemed very excited to meet some Americans and were surprised we were soldiers. We talked about what they were studying, where we lived, and our homes in America. My mention of Alabama started them all singing Sweet Home Alabama.

I've never met anyone who didn't know that song.

That began a sing fest in the back of the bus until the driver turned off the radio and began talking.

Yep! We were out of gas. Worse, we were only about halfway down the mountain. The driver thought he should catch a ride down to town and get a ride back with gas. The problems with this plan were many - We would have no heat. It would be dangerous sitting in the dark on the road at night. We had not seen anyone else on the hill for his ride down. Most of all, I did not trust him to return until morning.

I had a better idea.

We were stopped almost at the top of a hill. I suggested we push the van to the top, jump on, and coast to the town. It has to be mostly downhill.

And that's what we did. We all piled out, pushed the van to the top, and ran to jump on as the driver let it begin coasting down the hill. I was the fastest and probably the craziest, so I ensured all the kids were back on the bus before jumping in. The driver would let off the brakes when he heard everyone chanting, "John's on the Bus, John's on the Bus!"  I positioned Jim in the passenger seat so that Chauffeur Bey couldn't leave any of us.

Each time I jumped back in the van, the only seat left for me was the one next to Gamze. I was ok with that. It gave us plenty of time to misunderstand each other.