This past weekend I went with one other friend to Istanbul. From the start we were remarkably relaxed on planning the trip. Which I know will be an absolute shock to most. We booked everything through the travel agent so we didn’t even have to plan flights or the hotel. Of course when I finally looked up reviews of the hotel online it was not good. Every single review was negative. So of course already the day before we were dreading going. Plus it was supposed to rain the entire weekend. The other problem was our group taxi to the airport. Apparently it’s best to call in advance, so the day of our flight I only just reached them at noon to get picked up at 2pm. Of course they told me 1:45pm. And then at 1:30pm I got a call from the driver saying he was here. My friend hadn’t even gotten home from class yet, so it was a tense time with a cranky driver. However once we got in the cab he was okay.
When we finally got to the airport it turned out our check-in desk was in this random little place away from the main desks. Then when we were going through the first security check my friend got pulled aside for extra questioning. Despite that and all of the Israelis cutting in front of us in line, we still got through to the waiting area with tons of time. We really did well and only shopped for duty free snacks for the plane. After dinner we went over to our gate. At that point we were looking through the guidebook and I called one of my roommates who had been to Istanbul a few months ago to ask a question. Of course we got way more info than we bargained for. She kept telling us all of these things that could go wrong. Like they kept getting food at restaurants they thought was free and then they had to pay so much at the end. Or they kept having to use squat toilets in public restrooms. This of course is in addition to us reading through the guidebook learning about lamb entrails on a stick sold on the side of the road. So we were really kind of apprehensive at this point.
Then gate people started coming up to people in the seats, waiting for boarding, and asked to see their boarding passes. Just completely random people, and she asked for their passport and boarding pass. So that was weird. Then all of a sudden people sort of started gathering around the gate. We didn’t know what was going on so we went to investigate. Low and behold it turned out we were boarding. There was no announcement, it was just kind of everyone for themselves. We found out that we were in the second to last row of the plane, but at least we were sitting next to each other with no third person. Of course as we walk all the way to the back of the plane we see food on almost every single seat, so again, we were not encouraged. The flight was pretty good. I would say the highlight was the food. It was a double decker cheese sandwich with some sort of weird mayo spread on each part. It was the first interesting food experience.
When we get to the airport we realize that we have to buy a visa. Luckily each of us had $20 because they would only accept dollars and euros to pay for the visas. Once we were through passport control we went to get my friend’s baggage that she had checked. Unfortunately, the sleeping bag she checked wasn’t there. In fact there were 15 missing pieces of luggage from our flight. Of course there was only one little office with one woman who didn’t really speak English. Because everybody else was Israeli they all pushed ahead and we ended up filling out our forms last. While doing that, a woman came in to check our names off a list for the bus that was supposed to take us to our hotel. However when we finished in the office we walked outside and found the bus driving away. We were not happy. We were stranded in a country where no one really speaks English. After trying to contact a lot of people and get a bunch of help, we ended up having to hire a car to take us the 65km to our hotel. The guy driving didn’t actually know where our hotel was. So once we were in the area, he kept pulling the car over, hopping out, and asking for directions. It was really funny because at this point we were super overtired and he didn’t speak English and of course we don’t speak Turkish.
Once we got to the hotel we saw that all of our fears were unfounded. It was absolutely gorgeous. The reception desk spoke English very well. And right after we handed over our hotel voucher, we got a room key, and turned around to see a bellhop already carrying our bags. He took us up to our room, opened the door, and put our bags down. The room was perfectly nice. The beds were a little uncomfortable but everything was clean (which was our biggest concern). After figuring out our plans for the next day, we went to bed. We were completely exhausted.
We got up early and went to the amazing breakfast at the hotel. It was so delicious and it gave us an opportunity to try some different Turkish breakfast foods. After we headed out to an internet cafe. There we sent an email to our travel agent, very angry about what had happened. Of course our concern at that point was how we would be getting back to the airport on Sunday because we had no info about the bus back. After finishing all of our emailing we headed over to the tram station nearby. We took an underground tunnel to the next station and then switched to an above-ground tram to get to the center of the old city.
We were following the basic outline of the guidebook’s 2 day tour of Istanbul. One thing it recommended was a cistern which we ruled out because it seemed pretty boring. But right when we got off the tram there was like a four foot high sign saying the basilica cistern so we decided to venture over. Of course we didn’t know exactly what were looking for. So we saw a pretty big stone structure behind the sign and assumed it was the cistern, but we weren’t quite sure. Then from the elevated position where this stone structure was, we saw a polished stone column in kind of a stone pool with a sign in front of it. So naturally we thought that this was actually the cistern sort of thing, but no. Then we saw a sign that said 40m to the cistern, but you had to pay, so after all of that we decided not to go in.
Next up: the Aya Sofya, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and exhibit on the Sacred Trust…
