Farewell Istanbul - 2004

The last seconds in Istanbul

The phone rings at 6:30am... I pick it... Its my mother... Apparently she hasn't slept all night cuz she thought we would miss the flight... She tells me to get up and get to my cousins place by 9am... Our flight is at 1:30pm... I randomly scream something at her and hang up...

7am : Some inconsiderate persons phone throws me off the bed. For crying out loud if the phoen isn't screaming "Christine", its playing some ridiculous jazz or rock music. My heart was skipping. I couldnt decide what to do. Shower? Breakfast? what the ?

After showering, we ran for breakfast. I can't remember much of the breakfast but all I remember was that they ran out of coffee at 7:30am. I was like how the hell do you run out of coffee this early in the morning. According to my friend I went to grab an olive with my fork and the olive flew over my head. I remember this happening but I thought it was on a previous day. Anyway none of us bothered to look for this olive.

We ran back upstairs, grab our suitcases and manage to get a cab to my cousins place in Mecidyekoy. We arrive in time to stop my mother panicking. She probably thought we were going to leave her here. We left all our luggage downstairs with my mother standing there watching them.

We ran in the rain to say farewell to my barber. We found Kenan outside and it was a sad farewell. On the way back to my cousins we went to grab some bread to take on the flight incase we get hungry. Dont ask me why. It was my mothers idea ok.

Back to the apartment, I had to carry 6 suitcases down 3 flight of stairs. My uncle didn't want to help so he sat there eating breakfast while I did the job. Finally my hands were numb and on my last trip down the plastic broke and my asthma ventilator machine went crashing 3 flights of stairs. Some how the machine survived the crash.

After final farewells with the family we jumped into a taxi that was prebooked the night before. Its beyond me how the hell we fitted in this taxi with like 8 suitcases. The taxi was a station wagon and the agreed price for the trip was 25million. Little did we know he would screw us over. We arrived at the airport only for the taxi driver insisting 45million from us because we had more luggage than expected.

After getting screwed by the taxi driver you think we would learn. No we dont. Instead we get screwed again by the porter who ran up to the taxi to screw us. He insisted on carrying or seriously just pushing our luggage across the road into security check. This costed us about 15million. FFS were already over 60million just getting to the airport. But wait theres still more...

We arrived to the airport extremely early that we couldn't check in. So we had to squat on the ground in front of the counter. Meanwhile my friend decides to go get us coffee only to get screwed again by paying 21million for 3 coffees. Like what the hell is that about. They charged her 5 times the amount you would normally pay for coffee.

Finally the counter opened and we checked in. After all the fuss both my mother and my friend decided to go pee. Only for them to find the female toilets flooded with water and naked woman wandering the toilets. Somehow theses woman were showering in the toilets. I still don't understand how the hell they were doing this. According to my friend there are theses funny hoses in the toilets in turkey. The hose apparently sticks out where the water comes out to flush the toilet. Apparently theses woman rigged the toilet so that there was continous water flowing. I was in shock. What kind of person uses a toilet to shower. This was ridicuous. The woman were treating it as a hamam.

In between my mother was panicking about missing the flight even though we had over 1 and a half hours before boarding time. So we decided to shut her up so we went into the terminal and waited there. We left her sitting there while we tried looking for a money exchange to exchange our money. We only found a place that had no US or Singapore dollars. So we got stuck with the turkish money. I managed to quickly run into a cd shop and buy a last minute DVD to spend my money.

Finally we return to pick my mum up only to discover her panicking thinking we left her there.
She was still panicking so we decided to take her to the gate. We finally entered the gate and waited.

Suddently the lights switch off in the terminal and everyone panics. What the hell was going on? Why were the lights switching off? Meanwhile my mother is panicking that the size of the plane looks small and unsafe. Yes I know size matters but this was a jumbo plane. Finally the lights come back on and its time for boarding.

The last minute screw

We finally board the plane and wait. Thinking its all good things decide to change at the last minute when the pilot annouces that because the run way was under construction, we're supposed to do a 180 degree turn on the runway in order to take off.

Unfortunetly, because our plane is so big, we can't actually do that. So we were stopping at the runway to wait for a tow truck to tow us onto the runway and turn us around in the right direction. Now can you imagine me trying explain this one to my mother.......?