My trip to Istanbul began as most
of my other trips have thus far, waking up around 3 am to catch our 6:30 am
flight. Getting there was the
easiest part of the journey, just sit on the bus for an hour, it was once Katie
and I went our separate ways that it was more difficult. My flight to Zurich was very good
considering I had the whole row to myself so I just laid down and took a
nap. While I was waiting for my
flight from Zurich to Istanbul I had the brilliant thought of ‘oh, I’ll just
lay my head down and close my eyes for a little bit, but no way I will fall
asleep.’ Poor life choice. I was completely passed out during
boarding call and was the only one left in my waiting section, thankfully, some
kind person woke me up and said ‘Are you supposed to be on the flight to
Turkey?’ Whoever that person was,
they are a wonderful, wonderful human being.
(The Alps)
Once
I landed in Turkey, I found Katie and we headed out to find our hostel. Public transit is not nearly as easy to
figure out as transit in Prague but eventually we figured it out and made it to
our neighborhood. I thought it
would be easy to find the hostel, I had a map with its location on my phone and
all seemed well. After an hour and
a half of wandering around, it was obvious we weren’t going to find the hostel
on our own. We asked for help and
finally made it. We learned later
that maps of Istanbul are not always accurate, they miss streets and a lot of
the time they don’t have the right name.
Around
9 we finally went to get dinner.
It was a traditional Turkish food, pita bread with meat and
veggies. After eating only Czech
food for the past two months, something with a little flavor was amazing. We then went out to the tourists strip
with two girls who were staying in our room and just looked around. The feel of Istanbul is so different
from anything I have ever seen in Prague and the people, basically they are the
opposite of Czechs in every way.
Walking down the street people will talk to you, smile, and overall just
interact with you. It was slightly
overwhelming but also a nice change of pace. We then headed back to the hostel and crashed for the night
after being awake for almost 24 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment