Getting To Istanbul

It took us all day to get to Istanbul. We woke up at 6:45, ate breakfast, and tidied up the boat before catching an 8am bus to Victoria Station where we found a mini-riot at the bus platform. The 8am bus to the airport had broken down and the guys in charge were not. They were trying to make people queue up, but it wasn’t working. We got onto a bus at 8:40 (we had 8:30 tickets, so this wasn’t that bad) and set off through London and East London. Along the way, we stopped because a girl threw up on the bus. Luckily we were towards the back and didn’t have to deal with the smell. At the airport we checked-in, and tried to get money out of an ATM. The ATMs were really temperamental and Jess’s bank had frozen her account. I was finally able to get some pounds to change them to euros to pay for our hotel here, but it was a frustrating endeavor. We went through security and into the waiting lounge.

Inside, I went to Starbucks to see if they had free wifi (they didn’t) and I asked about gluten-free desserts. They had a dairy-free, gluten-free Belgian chocolate cake, but it had nuts. I was so happy they had something and then so let down to find out it contained nuts. This has been happening to me often: in Dublin with the cupcakes, in other Starbucks where the only wheat-free stuff has oats and nuts, and at Edinburgh castle where the chocolate cake had nuts. I am able to buy cookies at health-food stores, but they’re pretty expensive and they’re not chocolate cake. I’m going to have to develop a recipe/find something in Tel Aviv.

So we took the airport shuttle to out terminal and found it completely deserted. It was also 20 degrees hotter than the other part of the airport. After a while, more people started to show up and finally the airline workers arrived. We were the only flight out of this terminal. It’s because we were flying Pegasus Airlines instead of Ryanair or Easy Jet like most of the flights at Stanstead.

On the plane, the flight attendants immediately started rambling to me in Turkish. I told them I only spoke English and they quickly switched. They handed us a medical form which we were told to fill out. It asked us where we had been recently and if we had come into contact with anyone who could potentially have swine flu. We were required to provide our seat number on the plane and contact details in Turkey. We filled out the forms and returned them to the attendants.

At the airport, we had to pay a visa fee and then go through immigration – not a big deal at all. More people (other passengers) tried to talk to me in Turkish and got quite discouraged when I had no clue what they were saying. We got our bags and walked through customs. We tried again to get cash at the ATM. This time, my American card wouldn’t give me money because I had taken out so much in the UK. Jess called her bank and they said they would remove her hold, but then the guy didn’t do it properly so she had to call again. Luckily, my temperamental, Tesco-hating Spanish card actually pulled through and worked here, so we got some cash and took a city bus to the ferry. We landed in Asia and had to take a ferry across the Bosphorus to get to our hotel, which is in Europe. From the boat we could see the sun setting behind the Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque which are practically next to our hotel.

We walked from the ferry to our hotel. Turkey is similar to the old part of Sarajevo, which makes sense because the Ottoman Empire extended all the way to Bosnia. There are tram-tracks through this part of the city and lots of shops and restaurants. We got to the hotel and pretty much crashed. I used the internet and washed clothing; Jess watched TV and read. We’re finally in Istanbul!