I sat with two recent grads who just happened to be from Columbus, OH, the first morning. We had met the night before and just talked about random things, like their three-week trip that was winding down. They had gone to Egypt (and paid far too much for the camel ride), Greece (and got stuck on an island due to bad weather) and were finishing out the trip in Istanbul.
The next morning, I met a prison guard from Canada who was traveling around Europe for a few weeks before going to a family wedding or 5 in Punjab, India. He had lived there for his first 5 years and then moved back to Canada. As my friends joined us, our conversation moved to more spiritual things. He was a Sikh and told us different things about his religion. He told us that he didn't really practice the dress code, since he didn't wear a turban, beard, or the sword. The ever-childlike side of me said, "Wait, you're turning down the chance to wear a sword!?" and he said, "Well, I'm more of an orthodoxy than an orthopraxy kind of guy." He told us that in Sikhism they seek to live good lives and that if they are good in this life they will be reincarnated in a higher status in their next life. Molly asked him who decided what was good and bad, which made him say that that was one of the more tricky parts of the question. Since he was a prison guard, he knew a lot of inmates that he was kind of friends with--they told jokes and were pretty friendly for the most part--but some of them were there because of incredibly violent crimes. I was curious about what he thought about reincarnation. I asked him what he thought about eternity, since reincarnation meant that you became someone else. To my mind, if I'm an eternal being I'll continue to be me for eternity. He told me that he didn't actually believe in reincarnation.
The last morning there, we had breakfast with an eclectic group of people. First a guy from LA (originally from the Philippines) joined us, then a New Zealander who lived in Australia, and finally a man from Portugal. It was fun to talk about different languages with them and what it was like to travel. The hostel may have been one of my favorite places in Istanbul, since I got to learn more about other cultures and other traveling experiences. One of the women in our room was and English teacher in China who was from the Philippines and who had just arrived from a solo trip to Israel. We also met some people from Japan and Germany while we were there. If you ever travel and can handle bunk beds and sharing a room and bathroom with strangers, hostels can be pretty cool.