EDIT: THIS POST IS FROM FEB.2006. Trying t streamline and bring things together...


O.K., when last we left our heroic traveler, she was preparing to sprint across the Charles DeGaulle airport to make her flight to Istanbul…only there is a certain amount of knowledge that you, the dear reader, have that she did not at the time. You already know that her luggage will not, in fact, meet her in Istanbul nor will she come face to tag with it until9 days hence…back in Istanbul. You also know she made her plane AND she did not, in fact, die of heart failure as she was fairly certain she was going to whilst sprinting at top speed up stairwells, down stairwells, around deadly corners and through the oddest hallways of any International airport she had ever seen.. she also did not land in a French prison after murdering the shuttle bus driver who took the world’s longest, most convoluted route from the airplane tarmac to the terminal.

**I must interject here by saying that while I am posting these blogs for all to read, they are, in actuality, serving to ensure that I do not forget a bit of my trip.. I have an extraordinarily detailed mind when recalling things none too far in the past and though naysayers may doubt the legitimacy of my detailed trip memory I can well assure you that all you will read is, in fact real and accurate…unlike my memory of the most recent Presidential State of the Union address which I have taken great pains to erase from my memory as much of it is a bag of shit anyway**

Anyhow, so I race, I sprint, I run pell-mell to the terminal… Paris Charles DeGaulle is one of the most aggravating and horrifically confusing terminals I have seen for a major city. I make the flight. I am ecstatic as my heartbeat returns to something resembling normal(which for me is about 206 beats a minute). I have a window seat. I am served lunch which consists of: a rolled up piece of chicken (?) stuffed with a yellow glop, cheese, crackers, a slab of pink fish I think may be salmon but looks raw, a custard, grapes and a diet coke, dubbed “coca-cola light” that is served in a can the size of those tiny pineapple juice cans you can buy… I eat the cheese and crackers and send back the re

st. I promptly fall asleep. When I awaken I am confused, hot, uncomfortable and annoyed by my seatmate who is snoring loudly. I look out the window and am perplexed; trying to shake off the sleep as I am faced with something almost unbelievable…I look down and as far as the eye can see there are hundreds of peaks of white.. hundreds… as far as you can see! I think I am imagining… I do not comprehend…I know these must be the alps but the view is so stupendously out of my possible imagination that I know I must be still asleep. They continue on for 15 minutes of flight which, were I an aeronautical engineer I could tell you exactly how may miles that is, but I’m not…. so suffice to say, there were a lot of freakin mountains! It was amazing and beautiful and I think that Roget’s would not supply me with enough adjectives to do the view justice. It was also my first indication on the trip that I was far, far away from home and was thrilled to be there.

The flight to Istanbul seemed impossibly short despite my companions nasal obstructed sounds, and we landed with little fanfare. I strove to see Istanbul, craning my neck at impossible odds to view something beyond the outlying fields of the airport. I could not see much of anything beyond your normal city airport. I gathered u my backpack and prepared to disembark. The terminal was shiny, new, glossy even.. and deserted. Thanks to the detailed map that John had drawn for me, I knew precisely which way to walk and where the bathrooms were. I made my way to the VISA booth, purchased it for $20 and then headed for passport control which took me all of 30 seconds to pass through. It appeared that the Turkish authorities had no desire to learn why I was going to be in Turkey, they merely wanted to sticker my passport (on a disturbingly annoying middle page, and the sticker was affixed crookedly) and get me the hell through. This was most likely due to the fact that they somehow knew the fate that awaited me through the double doors…over by the baggage claim.
I wandered aimlessly through various baggage claim locales as the screens above the claims did not appear to match any of the incoming flights. It made me feel better that there were a few dozen other people wandering, just as confused as I was. Finally I found the right claim area and stood, arms crossed, knowing, KNOWING, it was futile..I knew my bag wasn’t going to be there. Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t. After standing with the 14 other people whose bags had apparently fallen into the sea or lay on the tarmac in Paris, I made my way out of the International terminal to meet up with John sr who had graciously flown from Kayseri to meet me after an Internet ticketing debacle. He had been forced to wait at the arrivals area of the International wing of the Istanbul airport for the hour it took me to give my information to AirFrance about my missing bag and had pretty much assumed the worst after having nor seen me come through the gate. We made our way to the domestic terminal, opening the doors unto a chaotic scene that was almost assaulting to my sleep-deprived self. The domestic terminal was a smoke-filled, noisy jumble of lines, families, chotskie selling booths and impossibly incoherent instructions. We got our tickets for Kayseri and made our way to a café where I was introduced to a steaming little cup of Turkish coffee and to the soon-to-be-everywhere swirl of cigarette smoke.
We slowly, slowly made our way to the gate area and hunkered down for the hour and a half wait whereby the arrival gate changed several times, my eyes became even more swollen and red, I immediately noticed that no one, NO one was reading while waiting for their flights and I slowly began to drift into that exhaustion laced dream world. We boarded our flight to Kayseri in the back of the plane, an experience which I still cannot fathom why American flights do not employ…board in the front AND the back, what a concept, get things done faster?? Of course, being that it is Turkey, the premise was a good one but people didn’t exactly understand and most failed to board the end they should have, the result being that we left 1/2 hour later than scheduled, something that is a somewhat ordinary occurrence. John and I settled in, awaiting our complementary cheese sandwiches (famed, I had heard so much about them alas they were not offered, I had a salad instead). I didn’t sleep, I am amazed to say.
The arrival in Kayseri was smooth… I think it was about 8:30 pm local time. We disembarked the plane, walked across the tarmac and entered the tiny airport to a scene I was wholly unprepared for…total chaos. Families greeting families, smoke filling the air, throngs of travelers filling the tiny gate area, yelling, movement. I made my way to the bathroom and was immediately presented with a filthy sink area and, you guessed it, my first hole in the ground. I was thrust quickly into a world I did not know…one without handsoap and where my quads would get a workout like they hadn’t seen in quite a while.
I was beginning to get awfully tired by this point.. we made our way past the haphazardly parked cars to John’s station wagon. We were actually able to leave the parking spot, something to be thankful for considering the horrific, chaotic parking jobs of most everyone…we careened onto the street and immediately I became aware of something the travel guides warned me about…the Turks drive like madmen. They are insane. They don’t use turn signals, they drive 100,000 miles an hour, they don’t turn on their headlights (John informed me it was to save on the battery), they load the tricks with impossibly tall product, they load their cars with every relative/friend they can find….and they drive at speeds that defy the imagination of anyone who has ever driven with Sandi or myself. It was fearsome, the drive to Urgup… I was delirious with exhaustion yet intent on drinking in the first sights, smells and sounds. Soon we were plugging along on a country highway that was inky in its darkness…(and initially dotted with a sign advertising the only McDonalds for hundreds of miles… the sign was 35 miles away from the actual restaurant AND facing the opposite way…ha). We chugged into Urgup and I was immediately surrounded by quick flashes of restaurants, café’s, the winery, the mosque…all blazingly lit up by the yellow xmas lights they like to string over everything. It was like Vegas…surreal and insanely west meets east.
We pooped up the hill and pulled into the 6 car parking area of the cave house we were staying at. It was pouring and I was standing yet asleep. John (jr) and Sevim(sp?)met us , we exchanged greetings and made our way inside the cave house. John presented us with bowls of steaming lentil soup he had made and a mug of tea. In no time I thought I was going to fall asleep talking, my head would plop unceremoniously into the vat of soup. I was given bottled water to brush my teeth with and made my upstairs to my bedroom which resembled paradise. I remember thinking I should take off my socks before I sank into the sleep of the dead….