Meet ups and Happy Days in Airports

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Istanbul where east meets west, Europe and Asian cultures collide, was also where it was time for me and brother Nemsis and father to congregate.

After a farewell party for another staff member at my work and many good byes at the Dilan Hotel I combined the last of my packing with 40 minutes sleep and before I knew it, it was time for the bus trip to the Schiphol airport and my flight to Istanbul.

I got to the airport, at 7.30am on November 27 to find out the flight had been canceled.

Again.

So now I had to wait 2 extra hours to fly.

I checked in and had another snooze, only to find out that the flight had been delayed by another hour. I was wondering if I was leaving Amsterdam today?


5 hours post scheduled departure we were in the air to Istanbul - SAW the Asian airport.

After getting to SAW I got my luggage (all in tact) and got on the bus to the city center. On the bus I met Jem, who told me about awesome squat parties of 1000+ people in Milano and helped me find the bus to Sultanhemet (were I was going to meet the Krunch family).

Meeting up with dad and Ivan was super. It was so good to see browski as I hadn’t seen him for 17 months!!!

We grabbed some grub then had a good 4 hours walking around Istanbul at night catching up on life of the past 17 months and all the sights in between! Well good.

We decided to leave for Bursa the next day, Saturday November 28. Dad and Ivan had spent already 4 days in Istanbul and were ready to move onto the next city.

Sleep was a bit chilly that night and I was still half asleep at breakfast.

After breakfast we headed down to the seaport to get the boat to Yalova to head to Bursa.

We were aiming for the 10:30am boat but when we got to the port the tickets for the boats were all sold out until 1:30pm. So we went that option.

Dad didn’t feel up to seeing the city centre so he didn’t join us. Ivan went to the ethnological museum whilst I headed to the Blue Mosque. The security wouldn’t let me inside the Blue Mosque as he said it was time for prayer and it would be closed until 1. I didn’t have until 1 so I decided to go inside through the exit. I snuck in relatively unnoticed then had a quick look around. It was really nice. And big. With all this beautiful Arabic calligraphy inside.

The carpet had the arrows pointing the way to Mecca.

The Blue Mosque is the second biggest Mosque in the world, following the main mosque in Mecca.

After I headed to the tombs of Sultan … It was really peaceful there.

Following the tombs I made my way to the ferry via the grand bazar.

The bazaar was closed but there was a nice cemetery nearby which I visited. I arrived at the ferry port with 5 minutes to spare.

Dad was not so pleased. Ivan arrived 2 minutes later and we quickly boarded the boat.

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