Fiasco?!

Well, I sure learned my lesson about making plans and waking up in the wee hours of the morning. This is what happened over a month ago.

I packed my bag. I wrote my blog post. I set my alarm for 3:50 a.m. I went to sleep. I woke up looking at light streaming through my window... I was immediately stressed because it doesn't get light until... I looked at my mobile. 6:50 a.m. I checked my alarm. I had set it, but I hadn't woken up. I screamed as silently as possible.

My flight left at 7 a.m. while I, in my pajamas, beat my pillow. I grabbed my bag and left for the airport anyway, determined to get to Munich.

I cried most of the way to the airport. I went through security. I stood, looking at the departure board like a shocked witness to a murder. Indeed, my plane was gone. I cried all the way on the walk from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. I went through security again (#2).

I bought a ticket to İstanbul that would connect me to a flight to Munich an hour and a half later. I went through security again (#3). I went to the gate. I learned that the flight was delayed and would miss the connection to İstanbul. I went back through security. I got a refund for the ticket I had purchased approximately 10 minutes before. I cried on my way back to the international terminal. I went back through security (#4).

I began to feel very embarassed in the empty terminal, the obvious return customer who can't figure out which fucking terminal to stay in, who can't seem to get on an airplane to save her life.

I pled with SunExpress for a new ticket (€150 one way?! No, thank you, I really, really can't afford that on top of what I'd spend in Munich anyway). I roused the Lufthansa travel agent from her cup of tea, which she glared daggers at me for, and then had tears slipping uncontrollably down my cheeks when she announced it would be €300 to Munich. I cried on the phone to the travel agent who'd booked my flight, then visited their branch at the airport and cried some more to the sympathetic but unhelpful man who only gave me a free cup of water.

After giving the airport personnel plenty to gossip about, I, defeated yabancı, finally gave up around 10:30 a.m. and went home. I looked intensely sullen and blotchy-faced, and I cried some more. Snivelling, I got home, threw down my backpack, pulled off my boots, and took a nap.

I woke up and booked a flight to Istanbul. I'd figure it out. No point in planning, right?! Why did I miss my plane?! I'm not the kind of person who misses anything scheduled. Not in my deepest of college-stress-sprees, not in my most sleep-deprived states have I ever had a problem waking up on time. If my alarm goes off, I wake up--but I didn't. It can only mean one thing: divine intervention.

So, when life pelts you with lemons, don't cry too much. Just make your lemonade. Take photos of sunrises over the Bosporus...

... and cotton candy and minarets (when in Edirne)...

... and the occasional opportunity to add to the Reflected Me Collection...

Yabancı Takes A Break

Kurban Bayramı, the Feast of the Sacrifice, starts Friday. It's a four-day national holiday in Turkey and everyone is going to be travelling. Lucky me, with my days off on Wednesday and Thursday, I have a six-day break. But, due to the desire of everyone in Turkey to get with their family, domestic ticket prices have skyrocketed. When I debated the merits of paying 500 lira for a flight to Trabzon, Turkey, or 230 lira for a return flight to Munich, Germany, the choice was clear. Get another stamp in the passport and indulge in pork and beer and first-world organization.

I'm staying with a family friend for a couple days in Grafing, then meeting up with some fellow American English teachers from Izmir (who, independent of me, also discovered that the cheapest flight out of Izmir at Bayram lands in Munich). We'll meet up for some of the time, but I'll likely spend a chunk of time on my own. There are Bavarian towns to discover, Christmas markets to plunder, Neuschwanstein to explore.

I leave tomorrow morning. My backpack is packed. My camera is charged. My earplugs are ready for use in a hostel. All that's left to do is change some lira into euros (watch that stack of money disappear into a much smaller one...), grab my toothbrush and head out the door at 4 a.m. tomorrow.

There will be adventures.