Finally landed in Istanbul and am safe and sound and snuggly
in my host’s apartment (more on my host later). Getting here though, is another
story. I landed in Turkey at 4:27 pm, slightly earlier than scheduled, and
expected to find Julie outside my gate all smiles, ready for us to embark on
our travels. Of course, she was not there. And the airport has no wifi, so I
had no means of contacting her. Welcome to Istanbul! Commence immediate panic
attack! At this point I am trying my best to keep my wits about me. Get myself
past customs with a fake semblance of calm while neurotically checking my phone
for wifi, and alas, there she is, my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
(passport check). I have never felt so relieved to see a brown haired white
person in my entire life. From then, I thought, all is well. As long as we
found each other, whatever happens, we will figure it out. WELL, “figuring out”
how to get from the airport to our host’s apartment ended up taking 5 hours.
Yeah, we got it aaallll figured out.
Long story (a mistaken taxi ride, multiple friendly stranger
encounters, lots of awkward language barriers, an emergency
starbucks-tervention, a long bus ride, and a lot of walking around the same
street) short, we made it. And in the process we discovered how friendly the
Turkish population is!
So after months of our “strategic, detail-oriented
planning,” we still end up being stupid bumbling American girls who have no
idea where they are going. Great. But if there is any good thing about Taken 2 being made into an actual movie
(I mean seriously, the plotline alone is…questionable…), it is that now,
whenever we majorly fck up we can say, “hey, at least we were not kidnapped and
sold into sex trafficking and had to be rescued by our dad only to have to
later rescue him when he gets taken in Istanbul.” Half glass full (of delicious
Turkish tea), eh?
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