Day 1 (The “Did that really just happen?” Day) -
Tuesday morning Sarah and Tessa and I got up at 3:40 in the morning and took the train to the airport so that we could catch our 6:40 flight to Istanbul. After being more thoroughly processed by a German border agent as I tried to leave the country than I have ever been processed entering France (only time I have ever been asked for my residency card), we got on the plane and settled in our seats for our three and a half hour long flight. The first hour and a half were uneventful and we all fell asleep. About half way through the flight I woke up and was reading my book when I suddenly realized that all the people around me were standing and staring behind me. I turned around and realized that the elderly gentleman sitting across the aisle one row behind me was experiencing some sort of medical emergency. It was a little scary but the flight attendants and two doctors on board soon had everything under control. Our captain also quickly announced that we would be making an emergency landing in Bulgaria. So after a hasty descent over the Black Sea we found ourselves on the tarmac of the airport in Burgas, Bulgaria. The Bulgarian EMT’s evacuated the gentleman and after about 45 minutes of paperwork and refueling we took off again and were soon in Istanbul. The flight attendants gave one of the doctors who had basically saved this man’s life a giant bag of Haribo candy as a Thank You gift. We though they should have given her free flights for life.
Once we arrived in Istanbul we were surprised to find that there were about 4 inches of snow on the ground. My first thought was, “This can’t be Turkey- it’s covered in white stuff!” Alas, it was Turkey. So we bought our nifty-looking tourist visas and went through customs and caught a shuttle bus to downtown. We then spent about an hour experiencing Turkish traffic and thinking that we were going to be killed by reckless drivers in the hilliest city I’ve ever seen which had just experienced a rare snow storm. But we didn’t die. We arrived at (what we thought was) Taksim Square and proceeded to try and find the best way to take public transportation to Sultanhamet (the neighborhood of our hostel). We quickly found a Metro stop and consulted a map. After concluding that we needed to take the funicular which was supposed to start at the stop where we thought we were, we spent 20 minutes walking around the block looking for the funicular. We finally tried to ask the guy who was selling Metro tickets (a second time) but as he was in the middle of explaining to Sarah in Turkish a random lady showed up, took the directions from Metro man and told us, in English, to follow her. Assuming that it was a scam but thinking that it was still our best option, we decided to follow, provided that she didn’t lead us down any deserted streets or tell us to get in to any un-marked vehicles. We then spent 15 minutes following this short woman (who looked kind of like a leprechaun) as she ran around asking various people directions in Turkish and darted in and out of traffic and every couple of minutes turned around to gesture to us to run faster. Finally she led us to a Metro stop that was actually Taksim Square (turns out the first one was down the street from Taksim and a different stop) and even helped us find the funicular and buy tickets. But before we could thank her profusely (or even monetarily) she led us to turnstile, watched us go through, and turned around and disappeared in to the crowd. Grateful and still a little overwhelmed we took the funicular to the tram and finally reached Sutanahmet. We then spent 20 minute tramping around the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia trying to find our hostel. I should add that during this whole process we couldn’t even pull out the map before random people on the street would ask us if we needed help. At first we were creeped out and assumed that people were trying sell us things or scam or harass us but after one guy pointed us to the Tourist Information Office and told us to “Enjoy Istanbul!” we realized that most people were really just trying to be helpful and friendly. So we eventually followed someone’s directions and found the Hostel and collapsed on our beds. We just stared at us each other. An emergency landing in Bulgaria? A Turkish leprechaun/fairy godmother? Really?
Being famished, we decided to check out the hostel restaurant which was delicious and cheap. Some English-speak at the table next to ours gave us his English-language newspaper so we caught up on the news before heading back to our room and relaxing for a couple of hours. That evening we ventured out but soon realized that after dark is not a time when groups of unaccompanied females walk around. Even in an area as touristy as Sutunhamet. At least in February. Feeling safe but very conspicuous we decided to go back to the room and catch up on our sleep so that we could do lots of site-seeing the next day.
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