Flight Cancelled - Istanbul

Have you ever been dropped off in a country you weren’t expecting to go to?

Travel can get crazy:

• Weather troubles

• Plane maintenance

• Pilot restrictions

• Missing flights

• Air traffic controllers go on strike…

The latter happened to us back in 2011 when air traffic controllers in Greece decided to fight austerity measures implemented by the current government to comply with Europen Union standards by putting on a strike.

They of course decided to do this while we were mid-flight, so we found out we wouldn’t be moving on when we stepped off the plane.

We didn’t know how long the strike would last for, so the airline company gave us a number to call to check on the status and put us up in a hotel - in Istanbul.

Immigration

While still in a daze about what was going on, we meandered our way to immigration and were beginning to feel the excitement of stepping into a country without ever planning for it.

A visa for Turkey was $40 USD and they took credit.

What would we do? What did we have time to see? Where was our hotel in relation to everything else? Hey, there’s Hillary Swank being chased by paparazzi…

Blonde with a White Leather Jacket

Immigration went swimmingly, as did our transfer to the hotel.

We dropped our bags, asked the front desk where we could go for food and they pointed down the street.

The street wasn’t well lit, but that didn’t stop the intrigue of stepping into the unknown.

We passed the place the front desk told us about. It was a pizza place selling kabobs. We decided to push on a little further to find something more authentic.

I did hesitate for a moment. I looked at Breanne - blonde with a white leather jacket - and just started chuckling to myself. We were young, but there are different cultures that have differing views on women and their appearance. I didn’t know much about Turkey - we felt safe - but it was a moment we still laugh about

Candle Lit Dinner

We continued for about ten minutes longer, not passing much along the way. Finally, we hit gold. We found an area with multiple restaurants that seemed local. We chose one we thought was a little more active than the others and stepped inside.

The door was a cloth you push to the side and the entire restaurant was lit by only candle light. TVs hung in the corners and showed Turkish basketball being played, as was horse racing. No one spoke English.

We clearly looked like tourists and we were greeted by many smiling faces. Three people that worked in the restaurant ushered us to a table and as we sat, they continued to smile at us. They never handed us a menu, so we just looked around and pointed to plates that looked good.

We ordered a bottle of wine and our server grabbed one of the younger boys that worked there, gave him some money and the boy ran out to buy us a bottle of wine.

We were in heaven.

For dinner, they served us a salad and a plate of potato chips - like Lays.

We were laughing and enjoying our wine. We didn’t know if we were going to be served more food and they never did but we didn’t care.

As we finished our wine - still enjoying ourselves thoroughly - they dropped two coffees on our table with a napkin on top. They proceeded to take out a lighter and light the napkin on fire. We loved it!

As we were getting ready to settle up, I realized I didn’t have any money! I had to leave the restaurant to run to an ATM. There were no other women dining in the restaurant. I had to leave Breanne to go get the money.

Everything was fine. We paid and walked happily back to our hotel. We stopped and got some pizze and a kabob and ate everything in our hotel room. We woke up the next morning, saw the blue mosque as well as the Hagia Sophia, got picked up by the airline and landed in Athens six hours later.