Hey Mini,
So this whole internet thing isn’t quite what I thought, so I still don’t have internet in my room. I’m actually typing this at about 1am and will paste this into an email to send to you later (you know it takes me forever to write things). Just as a heads up, this will be a bit long and detailed.
So I’ll start from the beginning of our travels. Our first flight, from Chicago to Istanbul, was around 10:30-45 or so. I was knocked out pretty much the entire flight, so my knowledge is a bit limited on that end. I was awake enough to notice somewhat utilize the TV’s we had in front of us. There were video guides to pretty much every city Turkish Air flew to, there were music options, and there were like 100 or so on demand movies. I used my screen to track the flight of the plane, and watch the very beginning of The Informant several times. Like I said, I was knocked out pretty much 8 ¼ of the 9 hours of that flight, so I missed every single food and drink service. According to Gal and Jess, the food on the flight was amazing though. And they served a tasty wine (according to Jess).
When we landed in Istanbul we started having fun (I was starving by this point, it was 4:30 the next day). Since we all had long layovers, we decided to get a visa and go get something to eat. Let me just state that as a southern-bred (by proxy) American, I’m used to a bit of politeness, and customer service. Not that people were outright obnoxious or mean, but the prime meridian might be the border to “I-just-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-you- stranger” land. There seems to be overall less “thank you’s” and “excuse me’s” over here (same for Israel as well), though nothing worse than a crowded transit station during rush hour. Anyhow, we got a Visa, stood in the long ass exit line for what felt like forever, then managed to arrange a car drop off and pick up to this restaurant near the water, not too far from the airport. By the way, the dude who drove us there was like a real life Turkish Transporter-guy (picture Jason Stratnham, or however you spell that guy’s name, in Turkish hot ). I mean, dude was weaving and speeding through mad traffic; a lesser driver would have killed us. The place was airy, high-ceilings, and actually pretty empty and cheap for as classy as it looked. The food was really tasty and we just hung out there for a few hours until the car came back to pick us up. We would have liked to wander, but it’d gotten dark and chilly so we just stayed put. Plus, there wasn’t too much obvious stuff to look at nearby anyway. Eventually, we get back to the airport. Let me just say that the security at the airport has a totally different vibe (Darn 9/11). Somehow, it has more layers, but seems more straight-forward and laid back. I don’t know/remember how it was in Paris, but there were 3 times you passed through roughly the same security set up: once as soon as you enter the airport, next when you go toward your gate, and then just before you get on your plane.
Back to the story: Gal and Jess had a much shorter layover than I did. WE walked around the airport for maybe an hour after getting back, then they had to board their flight to Tel Aviv at about 11pm or so. So I followed them to outside their gate entry area, and then just sat down with my bags and started to write in my journal. Enter creepy ass janitors. At first dude was nice; he asked me if I was American, what I was writing, did I want to smoke, etc (in Turkish of course, with some gestures and sporadic English words thrown in). So me being me, and confused as fuck, I was all smiles and basically alternating between trying to understand, while repeating “I don’t understand you” and avoiding eye contact. Sometime later, as I noticed the wing I was in had no more travelers passing through (though a really cute Turkish guy running for his flight I assume, made a point of smiling and saying hi to me while passing. Quite nice.) , the janitor friend, Tav, kept popping up more. When two more janitors appeared, and started talking to me with more crude gestures (there were finger and tongue motions), I knew I had to move for real that time. So I wander in a more populated section, before I settled down at this really nice restaurant, with a bomb ass cream of asparagus soup. I almost bought a drink called “lady in the airport” that sounded tasty, but cost 2x as much as my soup (which was about $6-7), and curled up on the couch under my blanket and a flat-screen blasting Turkish Top 100 hits before waking up for my 7:45 am flight. Lo me encanta mucho.
Hasta Luego,
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