Why Start in Izmir, Türkiye

Habibi, j’ai une idée

More than a month ago today, I landed in Izmir to meet Selim for the first time in about six weeks! I was excited to see him outside of his comfort zone. I knew him as the unofficial mayor of Bardo when I was in Tunisia. He spoke Tunisian Arabic (obviously) as his maternal language, knew everyone (and I mean everyone), and had a clear understanding and explanation for most things that I didn’t. I was excited to be on more equal playing ground, so to speak, in a place where we would both be in unfamiliar territory. An imbalance of cultural knowledge can be a bit challenging in a relationship over time. Selim and I agreed on Türkiye after what amounted to over a million conversations that started with with the phrase “Habibi, j’ai une idée.” He even threatened to delete my Skyscanner application after one too many ideas in one day. Don’t worry, I know how to re-install it.

Reasons for Türkiye

So why did we decide to come here? Well, I can speak from my perspective. I wanted to go somewhere where I could take another French class at an Institut Français. I was also interested in staying in le monde arabe (though that didn’t end up panning out), going somewhere that neither of us had been and somewhere that would work on a budget.

Once negotiations were finished, the Türkiye treaty was signed. The original plan was to go to Istanbul so I could participate in in-person classes at the Institut. Selim booked his flight to Istanbul and I continued my daily ritual of checking Skyscanner per usual (Malheureusement, I am not sponsored by Skyscanner).

Choosing Izmir

Before I booked my ticket, I learned that classes would actually be held online in June, not in-person so we went back to the negotiating table. Now, we were free to be away from Istanbul if we wanted. I wasn’t thrilled that classes weren’t in person but I bounced back. I was in Jordan when I booked my ticket. I decided to fly from Tel Aviv as I wanted to visit Palestine and the cheaper flight from Tel Aviv was actually to Izmir rather than Istanbul. Selim found it is the 3rd biggest city in Türkiye and also quite nice and beautiful being on the coast. Thanks Selim! He agreed to meet me in Izmir. Plan made. We were to start in Izmir, Türkiye on June 2nd when we would meet up in Konak, Izmir,