Day Six: Night Flying, Night Driving, Nightmares (Istanbul/Trabzon/Gümüshane)

I thought my flight was at 10:00 PM, but I was wrong. I guess my brain saw the actual flight time and tried to translate it into something considerably more reasonable. The flight actually leaves at 11:35 PM. The flight time is 1 hour, 45 minutes. And then it’s another 1 ½ - 2 hours to Gümüshane. So we’ll get there at like 3:00 AM, which seems a little insane to me. Thankfully we don’t start teaching the following day – now that would be madness!

The people running the hostel have been very generous with their space. I explained that my flight was very late at night and that I didn’t feel like going around town today, so they’ve allowed me to stay in the lounge and store my luggage until I’m ready to leave. It’s either stay here in the hostel, go sit in the airport or exhaust myself wandering around the city and also possibly getting lost. It takes like 2 hours to get to the airport by public transport and then I’m going to have to haggle with them over my bag, which I’m quite sure is way over weight.

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I spent the better part of the afternoon bumming around the hostel lounge talking to my mom on Facebook. I taught her how to make emoticons! I took the tram and the metro to the airport, and I’d swear it took less time than the first time even though I had to make an extra switch on the way. I was probably so exhausted on the way in that it just seemed like an eternity, that’s all.

I’m departing from the domestic terminal for my flight to Trabzon. It’s…uh…well, less nice than the international terminal. There’s also no free WiFi. The security seemed incredibly reasonable compared to ours – I didn’t have to take anything out but my laptop and I got to keep my shoes on. When I stepped up to the Turkish Airlines counter, the lady flashed me a big smile! She asked where I was going, gave me my choice of seating and then asked about luggage. I said, “One piece…unh…it’s…quite heavy,” as I tried to lug it up onto the conveyer belt. The scale said 29 kg but she pushed a couple of buttons and suddenly it was 19.2 kg, 0.8 kg under the limit. Woot! That lady was made of win!

I grabbed a cheese sandwich (bad idea) and found that my anti-Coke campaign is being thwarted at every turn. Every café I went to didn’t have bottled water. Well, one had it but it was some outrageous price like 6 TL!

Sitting in the gate’s waiting area gave me an opportunity to observe another facet of Turkish transportation. I’ve seen how the Turkish people drive their cars (terrifying), operate their public transportation (also terrifying) and sail their boats (yes, terrifying). Sitting in a taksi as it careens through the streets of Turkey is…an experience. It reminded me of the boda boda motorcycles in Kampala that dart in and out of traffic, easily the most terrifying transportation encounter of my life. While taking the ferry in the Bosphorus and Sea of Marmara, I was convinced at no less than six points that we would either run into another ship or be rammed ourselves. And if you can believe it, the tram and metro drivers run them like they were taksis.

Air transportation is equally as amusing. The waiting area is pretty sparse before they make the first call for boarding. Then suddenly people rush headlong to security trying to get through. The first group of mad dashers crowds around the ticket counter shoving their tickets at the agent all at once. There is no line. The second group of people can’t be bothered to come yet, so they wait until the agent announces “last call” before they saunter through security and then run to the ticket counter. There were people boarding our plane 3 minutes before takeoff!

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Whenever we arrived in Trabzon, we thought they’d lost our luggage. They made some announcement in Turkish that apparently said if you were coming from Istanbul as a domestic passenger then you should go to the domestic terminal. Thankfully our luggage was there waiting for us, as was a van with three jolly guys. They loaded our things up and off we sped to Gümüshane. It was 3:30 AM by the time we arrived, and I crashed in my room immediately. The call to prayer woke me up at 4:00 AM and I didn’t sleep as much as I thought I would. Still, it’s nice to finally be here!