My journey from Kilimanjaro to Istanbul started with a string of dire warnings from a fellow passenger, from whom I quickly distanced myself. He spent his time in the check-in queue at sweet little Kili airport complaining loudly about everything around him. The standard departure immigration form containing necessary information such as passenger name, destination, and flight number was "the most goddamn stoopid dumb form" he’d ever seen, and the flight itself was going to be "so goddamn awful”, he just knew it. After receiving cold, monosyllabic answers from me with the most frigid Britishness I could muster, he mooched away to bemoan his awful life in solitude. Was I rude? Very possibly, but it had to be done. I just prayed he wouldn’t be sitting next to me on the plane otherwise his prediction would turn out to be right.
While he sat miserably at the gate for two hours, I talked with one of the security guards who had greeted me. His name was Adamson, and in between his aviation duties he worked at Seronera Lodge in the Serengeti, saving up money to go to university and study Travel and Tourism. He asked about London, and wanted to know how to gain a university scholarship. He introduced me to the airport cat, who was called Airport Cat, and who was helping at the immigration desks. When I filtered through the gate with the other passengers, Adamson cheerily greeted me by name and we shared an exuberant one-up-one-down African handshake, to the bemusement of the other passengers. It was a lovely farewell to friendly Tanzania.
The plane was full, and yet miraculously I had the whole of the back row to myself, which meant I could lie down and sleep during the overnight flight. In a delicious twist of events, the doom-sayer had been immediately ahead of me in the check-in queue earlier but had had to step aside when he’d mislaid his passport ("This is dumb" was the only statement of his that I fully agreed with), and I had smiled sweetly at check-in when I asked for a window seat, so my empty row might have been his, had things gone his way. My sleep was long, both in hours and in bed-length, and I felt that my safari luck had not run out. It was the most goddamn comfortable flight I’d ever had.
I had a minor hiccup in Istanbul when I arrived at the street where I had booked my hostel, only to find that it no longer existed. A neighbour told me that it had closed six months ago, and yet I had received an confirmation email from them in July. But I hadn’t paid anything for it, and reassuring myself that Istanbul was full of hostels, I trudged off to find cheese for breakfast, and managed to locate replacement lodgings not far away, overlooking the Galata Tower. My first day in Istanbul had begun, and I had already fallen in love with the city the moment I saw the Bosphorus.
This post is dedicated to my friends at Dumb Runner (P.E.G.S.), whose motto is “This is dumb."
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More on Istanbul posts (chronological order):
A goddamn flight on a goddamn plane - karma strikes a rude man as I head to Istanbul
A sexual proposition and a dinner invitation in Istanbul, one of which I accepted - I eat menemen
The Third Continent - I accidentally go to Asia after dinner
The cats of Istanbul - exploring Istanbul
While he sat miserably at the gate for two hours, I talked with one of the security guards who had greeted me. His name was Adamson, and in between his aviation duties he worked at Seronera Lodge in the Serengeti, saving up money to go to university and study Travel and Tourism. He asked about London, and wanted to know how to gain a university scholarship. He introduced me to the airport cat, who was called Airport Cat, and who was helping at the immigration desks. When I filtered through the gate with the other passengers, Adamson cheerily greeted me by name and we shared an exuberant one-up-one-down African handshake, to the bemusement of the other passengers. It was a lovely farewell to friendly Tanzania.
The plane was full, and yet miraculously I had the whole of the back row to myself, which meant I could lie down and sleep during the overnight flight. In a delicious twist of events, the doom-sayer had been immediately ahead of me in the check-in queue earlier but had had to step aside when he’d mislaid his passport ("This is dumb" was the only statement of his that I fully agreed with), and I had smiled sweetly at check-in when I asked for a window seat, so my empty row might have been his, had things gone his way. My sleep was long, both in hours and in bed-length, and I felt that my safari luck had not run out. It was the most goddamn comfortable flight I’d ever had.
I had a minor hiccup in Istanbul when I arrived at the street where I had booked my hostel, only to find that it no longer existed. A neighbour told me that it had closed six months ago, and yet I had received an confirmation email from them in July. But I hadn’t paid anything for it, and reassuring myself that Istanbul was full of hostels, I trudged off to find cheese for breakfast, and managed to locate replacement lodgings not far away, overlooking the Galata Tower. My first day in Istanbul had begun, and I had already fallen in love with the city the moment I saw the Bosphorus.
This post is dedicated to my friends at Dumb Runner (P.E.G.S.), whose motto is “This is dumb."
______
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Or see more posts here: Get in the tuktuk, no time to explain
More on Istanbul posts (chronological order):
A goddamn flight on a goddamn plane - karma strikes a rude man as I head to Istanbul
A sexual proposition and a dinner invitation in Istanbul, one of which I accepted - I eat menemen
The Third Continent - I accidentally go to Asia after dinner
The cats of Istanbul - exploring Istanbul
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