After having been dragged through the dirt of Goreme, Turkey, by an
out-of-control moped, I finally let go of the handlebars and collapsed
in a dirty, bloody heap on the side of the street. I looked up to find a sidewalk cafe filled with men who had all
peeked up from their card games to watch me trail through the dirt.
Before either embarrassment or Nolan could catch up to me, I saw a
stocky man, with some grey streaks in his beard, put down his hookah,
and jog over.
As this kind man helped me from the
ground, I caught the glimpse of something neon green: could it be, just
next to the cafe of spectators, a pharmacy? I wiped some dirt out of the
corners of my eyes and blinked. Yes, that was indeed a pharmacy, the
town's only one, just a few yards ahead of me. As Nolan arrived and
began assessing the damage to the bike, I hobbled to the pharmacy; the
card players all suddenly enthralled once more in their games as I
limped by them.

While I had been
(mis)communicating in the pharmacy, Nolan had ridden his bike back to
the moped rental store, which, it turned out, had been only a block and a
half away from where the whole incident had occurred. He returned with
the shop owner. Starting to feel stiff, but still too rattled to feel
pain, I returned to the scene of the accident. All of a sudden, the
potential of a sprained ankle seemed insignificant compared to the realization that we
were about to blow our entire honeymoon budget on buying this man a new
moped. And at this, I started to cry. Perhaps it was my tears, or the
gravel sticking to the open wounds on my palms, but the man took one
look at me, turned to Nolan, and said "$50," an amount clearly
insufficient to cover the bike's bent handle rail and scraped siding.
The best wedding gift ever, I thought.
Back at our
hotel, Nolan and I had a truly memorable honeymoon experience, one that
involved a lot of touching and moaning, but not in a sexy kind of way:
As Nolan attempted to clean and dress my scrapes, I screamed and carried
on like a toddler. For the next three days, I walked around town with
gauze wrapped around my knees, looking more like a volleyball star than a
newlywed. By the time we reached Istanbul, Dr. Nolan had replaced the
gauze with some large band aids; so I no longer garnered the attention
of every person we walked by.
The rest of our
honeymoon went as beautifully as expected: visits to the Haj Sophia, a
Turkish cooking class, a ferry to Asia. We visited the Istanbul Food
Bazaar and stocked up on Turkish chili and roasted red pepper paste, and
brought home pillow covers made from recycled Turkish rugs.