The young adult and I are riding in the back of a van that serves as our taxi. The sun is setting as we make the long transfer from Istanbul’s airport to the Sultanahmet (old town). We talk while snacking on Storck Chocolate Riesen and Haribo gummy bears that we picked up at a ReWe in Gießen, Germany. There is a brief pause in the conversation, and then the young adult flashes the broad smile he flashes when a great idea comes into his head. After a brief moment, he says that he wants to offer our driver some of our candy. His eyes shift to the right as the thought develops more fully. “We should make sure it’s Halal,” he says. We google the items to try to figure out if they are Halal. They appear not to be. I offer that I still have some Pay Day candy bars in my backpack that we brought with us from the States. A quick Google search tells us those are Halal.
We arrive at the hotel after dark. The young adult hops out of the van, grins from ear to ear at the driver, and gives him a Pay Day, saying, “This is a candy bar from the United States. It’s good. You’ll like it. It’s Halal, too, so you can eat it if you follow a Halal diet.” The driver smiles, accepts the candy bar, offers a word of thanks, and drives away after carrying our luggage into the hotel. It’s another act of kindness that would never cross most minds (including mine) and that has an extra bit of thoughtfulness that makes the small act of giving a candy bar something beautiful. Such a kind, kind heart from a 21-year-old young man who has suffered much adversity in his life since early childhood… adversity that would make most people bitter, angry, strung out on drugs. Instead, he has an open heart, an open mind, a warm disposition… and intellectual curiosity that makes him delight in cultures, people, and travel.
The Itinerary
My big summer travel goal this year was to visit 2 brothers – one in Gießen, Germany, and one near Bangkok. They are the youngest and oldest of a set of four brothers I have known for around 20 years – since the youngest was around 6 and the oldest was around 12. When I moved to my current area of the US, I did not know a soul; the parents of the boys took me under their wing. I ate lunch with them every Sunday after church and was often invited to their home for meals and other activities. The parents are kind, wonderful people who not surprisingly raised kind, wonderful sons.
Stops in Germany and Thailand made for a trip that was ripe for circumnavigating the globe. I offered the young adult, with whom I have previously traveled, the chance to join me, and he eagerly accepted. The young adult and I arrived at an itinerary that included the following:
- Amsterdam x 2 nights to visit the young adult’s cousin and her husband
- Berlin x 4 nights to see some sights we missed during our 2022 visit there and to stay with our favorite B&B owner
- Gießen x 2 nights
- Istanbul x 4 nights because we both had wanted to see Istanbul for a while
- Bangkok and environs x 2.5 nights
It was a very people-oriented itinerary that lines up nicely with my travel philosophy: “Sights are cool. People are cooler.”
The Travelers
I am a professional in my early 50’s. and the young adult, as mentioned above, is 21. I first met the young adult nearly 10 years ago through my work and have come to know him and his family well.
In 2021, the young adult had an unfortunate hand injury that nearly cost him a finger. It happened right before he was to start undergraduate studies at the military college of his dreams – a college that would allow him to enter the Air Force as an officer, which was another dream. The working-class teen was able to attend the school because it granted him a full scholarship that was awarded to only one incoming student per year who demonstrated an exemplary interest in the military. The college deferred his admission due to the injury.