the arrival

Arriving into Turkey was different than Liz and I had remembered and expected. In fact, the airport was almost unrecognizable — in a good way. We breezed through the visa/passport checks and all the terminals and bag claim areas were brand spanking new. Quite a transformation! The best part was that we hoped we would have only a twenty minute drive to our hotel, because the airport was in a relatively urban environment, not far from the Fatih district where we were staying.

It turns out that planning for flexibility is the way to go. Our flight arrived an hour and half off schedule, and as a result we had trouble hooking up with our ride into town. It also turns out that the ride is much longer than expected, because we arrived into a completely different/new airport. We really only realized this after we finally got into our van with our driver and were driving for over an hour. The old airport, named after the first president of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is closed permanently. I don’t even know what the new airport is named… I guess I should Google that!

We arrived at our hotel at around 9pm, which, if you do the math, is about 22 hours after we left home via the Ed Jesse Express. It’s about thirty hours since we had last slept in a bed, so aside from some catnapping on the plane, we were pretty zombie-like. Nonetheless, we recognized the same hotel owner (?) as last time and it seemed as if he recognized us as well, but maybe he’s just great at his job. Or probably both? He said that we looked “great and happy!”

Despite our fatigue , we were determined to get some grub so we went to one of our favorite spots from two years back, Constantine’s Ark restaurant. It’s 30 feet from our hotel — a very nice bonus. It was a relaxed, casual experience; we sat in an open-air foyer that was lightly heated with some permanently mounted electric heaters. Plenty of decor choices made for what feels like a very Turkish ambiance, we think. The staff eventually became quite gregarious and we were treated to complimentary dessert and tea, followed by shots of raki (an anise-flavoured liquor) to cap the evening off.

The Saturday night-life was still kicking when we headed home and went to bed. And definitely, positively, nothing eventful or worthy of discussion happened that night into the early morning. Nope! Nothing!