Turkey - The long day of two flights

I wasn’t looking forward to the travel portion of this trip. The thing I hate most about travel is waiting. Waiting for your plane at the airport is the worse. Changing planes and waiting for hours in between is pure torture.

My day started at home, with trying to get in as much rest as possible. Then at around 10am it was time to leave my home and head to Budapest to the airport. Weirdly enough, more times than not, when I have to go to Ferenc Liszt airport, it rains. It was no different that day. The sky was covered in thick clouds, and the occasional icy wind ruffled my jacket. Drops of rain fell enough to annoy, but not to open an actual umbrella. I was glad when I could finally be in the protection of the airport terminal.

The change at the airport was that the usual wrapping company had changed to a different one. I heard that it used to be an Italian company that security wrapped the bags, but their contract had expired. The new company is Hungarian, supposedly close to the government, but I like to stay out of politics. The important part is that the fee had gone up. There was a very long queue for the Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. It was a mixed bunch of people, with a group of Koreans, some Americans, and also Hungarians. My bag was fine weight wise, and we got all the papers for both flights as well. We opted not to pick the bags up at Istanbul.

Security went surprisingly fast. Costa Coffee had reopened, but I didn’t have a lot of time to drink my coffee. Ended up finishing it on the plane.

The plane was not the usual affair. It seemed to be an older model, no personal screens, a bit less legroom, and I had an aisle seat. I couldn’t watch the clouds from above, which made me a bit sad, as I really like to do that. The plane was unusually cold. Without a screen to entertain me, I decided to study a bit of Turkish. I downloaded a very good book for it recently, and upon closer inspection I found that it was indeed very useful. The grammar explanations clear, and the right amount of words to study. I have been doing Duolingo, and that is very good to learn Turkish, but I prefer detailed grammatical explanations.

Food was the same as always. A cheese, tomato and olive sandwich, a chocolate mousse for dessert and I chose tea for drink to warm me up. I tried to order in Turkish, but I got lost when he asked me if I wanted sugar. He said it so fast, and all those suffixes made the “şeker” part lost. Oh well, I’ll get it next time. Not bad for learning on my own.

The plane landed in a sunny Istanbul that had a strange darkness in the air. I wondered if it was the pollution of that busy city. However, a chilly wind still snuck under my clothes, rushing me to the terminal building. The passport control was as busy as always, but kept a steady pace, and I was quickly processed. To get to the domestic terminal (İç Hatlar Terminali) I had to exit the International (Dış Hatlar Terminali) one, keep going and going, until I got to the equally busy point of departure for local planes. I was still a bit hungry and got some fries at a small eatery. Only later did I realise that after the security check there are a lot better places. Still, there were hours and hours of waiting to come. I kept myself busy by watching Gundam. I want to finish Iron-Blooded Orphans season 2 by the time I go to Japan.

We could finally get on the plane. I was in the last row, 22 and next to the window. I was happy about that, because that way I could see Istanbul at night from above. I decided to do a video as well. As people were boarding, I watched as the workers were putting the bags into the belly of the plane. There was one that arrived by an airport car, maybe a late check-in. One came back on the belt, they put it on the ground next to it. The suitcase just sat there for a while, and I wondered if the plane was going to run over it. Then the workers came again, and three of them stood contemplating over it. In the end they put it back one, and it came with us. Glad that wasn’t my pack.

As I watched the people of the airport bustling about, I started to think about how much effort it took to run the place. All the coordination, the organisation that went into making the planes move about as if to a silent symphony. It still baffles me that these steel birds can leave the ground carrying tons of weight through the air. I know that there’s aerodynamics and all sorts of physics involved, but to me, it’s one of the wonders of the world. Humans, these highly evolved apes are capable of such wonders. It’s a sad thing that we can turn our minds to destruction as well.

I wasn’t lost in my musings enough to not notice when the plane finally got into position to take off. I happily recorded it all, and kept my eyes glued to the twinkling lights. Sadly, it wasn’t perfect, as there were some clouds. Even through them, I could marvel at the different shapes the lights gave the fantastic new buildings, the boats floating in the sea as tealights on a pond.

When I stopped the camera, we passed through a thick cloud to gain altitude, and the plane was thrown about a bit. One rather large bump gave me such a fright – I hate turbulence to begin with -, that I gave out a little scream. Of course, everyone looked at me, and I laughed it off. Don’t ever scare me, seriously. I’m a screamer.

We got the usual sandwich, but no chocolate this time. ☹ The only had orange juice (portakal suyu). On the way the sky cleared, and there were small settlements everywhere. From above they were campsites warding off the night with fire. Then a bigger stretch of lights arrived under us, and I knew we have arrived to Konya. It didn’t look all that big though. Supposedly, it has as many inhabitants as Budapest, but it looked a lot smaller.

I took my camera out to shoot the landing, and then we taxied for some time. The airport felt huge, or they just put the landing strip too far. As a domestic arrival, there was no security check, and we just went straight to the bags. We waited for a while at the wrong belt, and then the other belt finished without our luggage. Some other people were also looking around perplexed. An employee came and started rattling something off in Turkish. Now I may know a few words, but it wasn’t enough. So I asked him to say it in English, and he managed to get out that transfer luggage arrived at a different section of the airport. There was my bag! Such a relief! We got a taxi to the hotel, and I checked on my phone if he was taking us on the short route. He was, good job! The only problem was that the car smelled so strongly of smoke, I kept the window open all the way. I’m getting really intolerant to the smell.

Arrived to the hotel, and of course check-in was a drag. The guy saw two people in both rooms in the reservation. I made it myself, so I know there was only one. My name wasn’t anywhere, when I did put it down in the system. We also asked if the rooms could be on a higher floor, but higher floors are smoking.

When I finally got into my room, I was ready to hit the hay, but at first I wanted to make the room video. Overall, I quite liked the room, even though it wasn’t quiet like we asked, overlooking a busy road. The bathroom had a sewage smell, and the fan in there was loud, as per usual. The floors around the edges not as clean as they should be. The TV all in Turkish. However, at least the bed was comfy. I finished up some things and went to sleep fairly quickly. I did wake up at night a couple of times as I often do when sleeping in a new place.