The Non-Glamorous Side of Travel

Blech. Two whole days which have been largely a waste. In less than 24 hours I have been in 3 countries, but unfortunately most of that time has been on trains, metros and airports.

I had specifically chosen an evening flight from Amsterdam back to Madrid last night, thinking it would give me the whole day to enjoy spending in the city. Well, at least I TRIED to make a plan this time. But some things you just can't plan (which is why I don't usually even try). It rained and was cold all day so I spent the better part of the morning and afternoon waiting it out inside; fortunately, I found a place that had free WiFi so I spent my time well, catching up on e-mail and stuff from home, but it was frustrating to be in such a cool city and have to waste the time doing something I could do anywhere. The only time I got to spend outside was when I walked from my hotel up to the train station, about a 45-minute walk. And that was my last day in Amsterdam. Boo.

It hasn't gotten too much better or more exciting since then. Since 3:30 yesterday afternoon, here is what I've done: walk to the Amsterdam train station, train to the airport, sit at the airport for almost 4 hours due to delayed flight, 2-hour flight back to Madrid, 3 subway trains, walk from metro to finally get to my hostel at 12:30 am, sleep for 6 hours, reunite with my suitcase (boo, exclamation!) which I had stored at the hostel, leave hostel first thing in the morning, walk back to subway, 3 more subway trains back to the airport (this time in rush hour), lines, more lines, security, customs, arrive at my gate JUST as they are boarding, meet up with Sarah, 4-hour flight to Istanbul, 1-hour bus ride to our stop. I'm tired.

BUT, from there we met up with Emre, our couchsurfer host who has kindly agreed to let us stay with him the whole time we're in Istanbul. He and his friend met us where we got off the bus and showed us to their house. Turns out that there are 3 people living here but when we got here some of their friends were also over so we spent some time hanging out with them, chatting and getting to know them. They seem like really nice guys and they've given us our own really nice room with a separate bathroom. It looks like it's going to be a good situation.

So two pretty boring and tiring days of travel behind me and now I'm ready for the next adventure. I have a feeling that this is where some of the TRUE adventure will begin. Traveling through Europe, even taking into account the language barriers in some of the countries, is relatively easy as things are laid out well, pretty orderly in how they're marked, well-organized and similar in many ways to life in the US. It's fairly easy to navigate your way around there. But from here on in all the countries we'll be visiting will be brand new for both of us and I have a feeling they'll all be very different from what we've experienced before. I also imagine there might be some challenges ahead with finding our way through it all but, hey, that's all part of the adventure, right? Bring it on!

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P.S. I was in downtown Istanbul less than 15 minutes before having my first Turkish coffee. Woo-hoo!