Stories We Haven't Been Able to Tell: Always go back to ask what’s in the strawberry tart.

On the 5th of May, we left an Istanbul bakery well satisfied and slightly enamored by the Turkish coffee, baklava and strawberry tart we’d just eaten. We were debating whether to ask the very friendly clerk what made the custard in their tart so unique, but he was busy helping someone. We hesitated in that way you do when deciding whether to ask for help or directions and finally took the easy path- we left. A few yards down the sidewalk, we turned around and decided to ask anyway, even if we had to wait. Along with an invitation to visit the store the next day while the pastry chef was present, the 20-something man asked us what we were doing that night and told us about a festival taking place not far from our hotel. It was Hidrellez, a traditional celebration of late spring, welcoming warm weather and light evenings.
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We followed the little map he’d drawn and headed for a park along the sea. It was packed with thousands of people, mostly families and young adults buying tickets for food from local, well-known restaurant booths (including the one we’d been to for dinner and the pastry shop we’d just left), drinking local beer, listening to live music, and basically hanging out. We found a tent with traditional folk music and spent a good hour entertained by all the people singing along at the top of their lungs and dancing steps and motions everyone seemed to know. We both felt a tinge of jealousy of their shared cultural experience, wishing the United States had old, well-known songs in which both young and old could so physically participate, and not in a half-embarrassed Chicken Song kinda way.

The festival was made even more interesting by all the “decorations.” Tradition calls for people to write down their biggest wishes for the coming year on little slips of paper to be tied to a special “wish tree.” Then, to make the wishes come true, you jumped over fire. We didn’t see much fire (just fireworks), but there were hundreds of people hanging wishes written on the backs of receipts, on colored paper, on sheets pulled from a ruled spiral notebook, on specially designed computer paper complete with printed pictures. All the ribbons and cloth and paper on the trees made the night seem even more magical.

This story has a lesson. We hadn’t seen (or noticed) any signs for the festival, and the actual event was not taking place on the route to anywhere. We saw very few tourists and felt part of something very uniquely Turkish. But we would’ve missed the whole thing if we hadn’t stuck our heads out, turned around, and gone back to ask what was in the strawberry tart. Kinda makes me wonder what else we’ve missed along the way…