Day 1

England > Istanbul

Woke up fresh at 7am and spent most my morning making 4 breakfast baps, 2 for me and 2 for my dad - turns out he didn't like them so that was a waste. After a brief and emotional goodbye with me mum, I said goodbye to the kittens and left with nothing but my backpack. What should have been an hour and a half drive to Stanstead turned into two and a half hours but it was all worth it to see Alfie's butchered buzz cut. He said he won't be taking his cap off for a month and I can't blame him.

Bags checked, security passed and shit had, it was time for the only reason anyone ever goes abroad - day drinking. A pint at 12pm? Yes please. Soon we board our 12.45 flight to Istanbul - paying the extra £9 so we could sit next to eachother - but I still got lumbered in the middle seat. With a beautiful view of the Alps, a free lunch, and a nap, it wasn't long till we were descending into Turkey.

Leaving the airport we had realised our lack of planning had already fucked us over as we had no WiFi as our SIMs would charge us an extortionate rate (£5 per MB?!), it was dark and we didn't know how to get into the city centre. Overwhelmed by busses, taxis, and trains we weren't sure what to do. Eventually we opt for a taxi as it was getting late and our brains weren't prepared to think this hard. This was a huge mistake as the lack of data meant we had no Google Translate to communicate with our driver who generously gave us the white guy rates and charged us over £80 for less than an hours drive. Cunningly playing into the language barrier and the new exchange rates we were most definitely learning lessons fast.

Upon arriving at our hostel we had already become accustomed to the neighbourhood cats and dogs roaming the city, which was very nice as our hostel had its very own pet dog. Stowing our stuff into the lockers of our 10 person room we set our goals to find some cheap food. Being in a tourist hotspot this was definitely a challenge, having to dodge enthusiastic salesmen trying to get us into their restaurants. 2 business cards later we find a nice small place with very cheap price and an ever nicer chef / host. For only 100 Lira we had a much needed chicken wrap. And with that we head back to our hostel and explore the cosy roof terrace and hatch our plan for tomorrow.Read more