Overnight To Istanbul

When we got back to Stuttgart after the Sindelfingen Plant tour yesterday, we did some shopping on Königstrasse, Stuttgart’s main shopping street, but by 2:30 we were bored.  We headed to the airport, thinking we could hang out and use their Wi-Fi until our flight at 10:25 pm, but the Wi-Fi at the airport was broken!  Once again, I’m not a fan of airports or flying…

Stuttgart Airport turned out to be surprisingly small and crappy (we didn’t notice when we first landed here on Tuesday).  After you go through security, there’s only one place to get cooked food and they closed at 7, just as we were about to go eat there!  There were 3 places open to buy sandwiches, but the sandwiches looked like they had been sitting out all day and weren’t appetizing at all.  We ended up eating Burger King, which Paul had to go back out of the secured area to get, and drinking an insanely overpriced €5 bottle of water from the sandwich store.  I really hate the fact that they don’t let you take bottled water through security!

Thankfully, our second Germanwings flight was much more pleasant than the first.  The check-in staff didn’t harass us to weigh or size-check our carry-on bags, so we were wearing multiple layers of clothing and carrying ludicrous amounts of stuff in our pockets for no reason.  Also, the flight attendants were very pleasant, unlike on our flight to Stuttgart where they seemed sick of their jobs.  The best part of the flight, though, was meeting the person sitting next to me, a half-Turkish half-Greek guy named Ilyas.  He struck up conversation by asking where we’re from, and for almost the entire flight we had a very pleasant chat getting to know one another.  Once again, we’ve met someone we’ll really keep in touch with after the trip!

To enter Turkey as a tourist, Canadians must to purchase a “90 Days multiple entry sticker type tourist visa” upon arrival for €45.  Our flight landed at 3 am Istanbul time so the visa booth was closed, but a security guy helped us find someone to re-open it.  Interestingly enough, we were the only people on the flight who needed to buy a visa!  By the time we got this sorted out and passed through customs and immigration, it was almost 4 am.  Since it would take another hour by shuttle bus to get to city center, it wasn’t worthwhile to pay for a hotel for the night so we found a comfortable bench in the airport and waited for the morning shuttle today.  Although the Sabiha Gökçen Airport is smaller than Stuttgart Airport, spending 6 hours here was far better than 6 hours at Stuttgart Airport.  Food and drinks are reasonably priced (a bottle of water cost 2 Turkish lira, which is about $1.40 CAD) and places were actually open at 4 am!  More importantly, the Wi-Fi actually worked, but there’s a small charge. 

At 10 am this morning, we caught the HAVAS shuttle bus to Taksim square, a major shopping, tourist and leisure district in the center of Istanbul (bus costs 12 lira per person and actually drops you off about a block from Taksim square).  Outside of the metro station, we picked up Akbil transit passes, which are small stainless steel “buttons” on a plastic holder (similar to a key fob).  You pay a refundable 6 lira deposit for the Akbil and then load whatever amount you want on it (just like London’s Oyster cards).  Contrary to what we read on the Internet, the Akbil doesn’t give you free transfers for 45 minutes, but it does reduce the transfer fare by 50% (e.g. we had to change from the funicular to the tram and instead of paying 1.50 lira per ride, the Akbil deducted 1.50 lira for the first ride and another 0.75 lira when we went through the gates to the tram). 

The last 24 hours have been excruciatingly long with far too much time spent at the airport, but I’m looking forward to exploring Istanbul!  First, though, we are taking a nap at the hotel