Esetçe

i managed to get the last seat on the bus to thessaloniki at the local ticket office, got onto the bus and everything went smooth and i arrived in thessaloniki happy and well. except i didn't. as soon as i got onto the bus and off the phone with my mum, i realized i had symptoms for a sun stroke. started shivering, got super hot and pale in the face, ice cold everywhere else and pains in every conceivable part of my body. by the time i was i thessaloniki, i was fighting the urge to pass the fuck out and miss my connection to istanbul. also, i had found the room key of the hostel in my pocket, so i had to go and return in within the two hours i had before the next bus.

somehow stumbled to the hostel (midnight at this point) and got back to the international bus terminal. the ETA came and went, no bus in sight. was super lucky to have a lady from the bus stop tell me that this particular company didn't use this terminal, so i ran over to the other side of the building where the bus, to my even bigger luck, was still waiting for me 7 minutes after it should've departed. the turkish attendants really weren't too happy with me, but it was so worn out at this point that i couldn't have possibly given a single fuck. fyi, the description of the bus gate on my ticket read "close to the main station". thanks for nothing.

spent the next 11 hours in zombie mode, but luckily felt much better by the time we hit the turkish border, so i was actually able to appreciate the experience a bit. the turkish border post is huuge and pretty neat, and while waiting to get my passport stamped, i heard the typical religious chanting from a mosque located on the premises for the first time. that's when realization kicked in that i was going to a very different place now.

driving into istanbul is equally impressive. it's probably the liveliest city i've been to so far, and some of the buildings along the way are mind blowing. just getting off at the bus station was already chaotic as hell, bunch of vendors shouting from their shops, people trying to lure you into a conversation with the typical "how's it going bro" and taxi drivers almost dragging you into their cars. managed to find a trustworthy mobile shop to sell me a prepaid sim card for some internet and got my first turkish dürüm from a super friendly restaurant owner. 2€ well spent.

after some more complications, i got to my hostel, fell asleep immediately and didn't wake up until late in the evening. travel days are no joke manLäs mer