Backpacker resuscitation

Solo wandering in Turkey for just a few days after the Global Health and Wellness Summit in Marrakech (yep, seems incongruous in the context of this blog) and, along with hot springs and hamams, good things are bubbling.
Despite being a university city, there's zero English spoken here in Eskisehir (except a little by the Afghan refugee 22 year-old waiter last night where I had dinner). No French heard either. There follows the hilarity at doing an interpretive dance a hole-in-the-wall shop needed to get a band-aid for my heel.
There's beautiful food every few paces, and the great energy of thousands of uni age folk out last night by the river so refreshing after Istanbul - brimful with its cruise ship age touros.
There's about a kilometre along both sides of the creek here that has cafés full of 20-somethings playing backgammon and a hundred other board games over coffee/tea and laughs.
Not a tourist in town have I seen.
My primary purpose is a little blunted - I came here because it's centre of a hot springs province - yet there was the country's major military air show on Sunday. Fighter jets still ignite the sky over the city about every 10 minutes - seems I found Gaza not hot springs!

But there's more happening here than such standard kind of facebook travel snippets. I'm just beginning to really enjoy meandering about with no fixed itinerary, eyes open and spending good time in my own headspace - something I used to declare a regular need, not a want.
It's been a while - just remembering how much more awareness/observation/appreciation/learning was to be done during solo walkabout. Though the group travel of Morocco with a top bunch was fun, I think my backpacker is back (except I catch taxis from bus stations to hotels now - and they're hotels not flea pits!).
There's a renewal at being solo - distanced, vulnerable and at the helm steering my own course no matter what comes up. I'll never be the invincible 20yo Asia or 22yo Central/South America traveller again - but this little slice of solo sailing has brought back an independence and confidence perhaps not really known for years.

Next up (if this blog were a hardcopy travel journal it would have found itself moulding in the shed by now, but on it goes): there's potentially another chapter when I get home. I'd had no major events between Feb and Sept 1 - Prof Butler having doubled the dose of Lamictal to eliminate Boxing Day-style performances. VicRoads Med Review Board wanted a letter from him as an update before reconsidering my licence this month, which they've hopefully posted already or will some time in the coming month.