The unfortunate thing about travelling as far as somewhere like Turkey from London means despite having an early flight, the duration of the flight combined with the time difference means you’ve wasted a whole day on travel which meant Emma, Paul and I didn’t arrive at Istanbul airport until late afternoon. We wandered around for a bit trying to find a cheap way of getting into the city since we’d unfortunately flown into the Gatwick of Istanbul rather than the more convenient Heathrow version. Not surprisingly we found some other kiwis at the airport who were trying to do the same thing as us so we combined our lira powers to get a taxi together into the city. It was quite a hairy ride with the driver speeding along the motorway inspecting his map whilst speeding along the motorway so as a distraction we chatted to our fellow passengers, only to discover that randomly we had a friend in common – Renee. But I guess it's bound to happen since we were converging in a country on the same weekend as another 3,000 odd kiwis.
Paul directed the taxi driver to our hotel using our Beige Brigade map we had been provided with and when we checked in we were pleased to discover we had been put into a room with three beds rather than me having to pair up with someone else on my tour like I’d got the impression I was going to have to do.
After dumping our bags we headed across town to find the bar where we were to meet up with our tour to get the run down on the proceedings for the morning as well as pick up our free drink and ANZAC hoodie. Unfortunately that didn’t go so well as we were late to which meant all we could find were drunken Aussie and Kiwis already donning their ANZAC hoodies and no “guides” in sight. We asked a few people what the low down was and they informed us that there would be a wakeup call at a respectable 4am, breakfast at 5am, leaving at 6am so we were quite happy to opt out of the drunken evening that was unfolding at the bar in favour of finding ourselves a Turkish dinner before heading to bed. Once we’d satisfied our stomachs with delightful Turkish meals and apple tea we wandered back to our hotel via the Blue Mosque which looked stunning lit up in the darkness.
Paul directed the taxi driver to our hotel using our Beige Brigade map we had been provided with and when we checked in we were pleased to discover we had been put into a room with three beds rather than me having to pair up with someone else on my tour like I’d got the impression I was going to have to do.
After dumping our bags we headed across town to find the bar where we were to meet up with our tour to get the run down on the proceedings for the morning as well as pick up our free drink and ANZAC hoodie. Unfortunately that didn’t go so well as we were late to which meant all we could find were drunken Aussie and Kiwis already donning their ANZAC hoodies and no “guides” in sight. We asked a few people what the low down was and they informed us that there would be a wakeup call at a respectable 4am, breakfast at 5am, leaving at 6am so we were quite happy to opt out of the drunken evening that was unfolding at the bar in favour of finding ourselves a Turkish dinner before heading to bed. Once we’d satisfied our stomachs with delightful Turkish meals and apple tea we wandered back to our hotel via the Blue Mosque which looked stunning lit up in the darkness.
4 comments:
interesting read. I would love to follow you on twitter.
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