Our driver had said "it will be raining in an
hour." Boy, that turned out to be an understatement.
We checked into our hotel in Istanbul at 6 PM and went up
to our room. When we got to our room, we were ecstatic to see that the view out
of our back window looked out at the water (largely the same view as from the
rooftop terrace that had excited us so at this hotel).
Within minutes, dark clouds were blowing in over that
water, though. The water was being picked up and turned. This was a storm front
and it was moving fast. We were in awe as we literally watched it roll
in. We strained our necks to look further at what was coming and the
clouds were greenish in color. Lightning. Thunder. Heavy rain. Wind gusts
blowing debris off of rooftops. Massive hail plummeting violently out of the
sky and literally knocking out windows.
Ten minutes earlier we were in a van with our driver and
what was already an eye-opening and impressive-yet-terrifying experience would
have been a nightmare in this weather. We'd been in a behemoth bus in
Istanbul prior, but never a "normal"-sized vehicle. This was a
euro-style van. The driver was taking us from the smaller, further-out
airport in Istanbul (Gokcen) to our hotel. First, he dropped another
person at their hotel near Taksim square before bringing us to our
accommodation in Sultanahmet.
With respect to the typical driving in Turkey stuff I've
already described, this driver was all of that that to the extreme. But, add to
that the choatic environment of Istanbul--vendors (human beings) out in between
the lanes of freeways selling water and pastries, among other things, as cars
go by; streets densely populated with pedestrians who will either simply walk
in the middle of the road lackadaisically while seemingly pondering the
afterlife or dart in front of rapidly moving vehicles to shave 30 seconds off
of their arrival time to the metro platform where they'll then wait 15 minutes
for their train; and, other vehicles also doing the extreme version of Turkish
driving all at once in less space with more rapidly changing variables.
It was nuts. How our driver did not maim or kill at least seven people or
get in some sort of collision and thereby injuring all of us was beyond
me. But, even Becca, who'd dislocated my right thumb by the end of the
ride, conceded it was an important experience for this city. She was duly
impressed. We tipped this man, largely because we couldn't figure out how
he'd managed it all so poorly yet so well, all at the same time.
The entire day--from after breakfast around 10 am until
we arrived at our hotel--was travel. The two-plus hour drive from Kas to
the Dalaman Airport (we ultimately put 720 kilometers on our rental car, while
only using half a tank of gas); our flight to Istanbul-Gokcen; then, the
rollercoaster off its rails to the hotel. While everything we'd planned
out in getting from point to point went (mostly) according to plan--neither of
us had expected this entire day would be travel. That was a bit of a gut
punch (both because we hadn't mentally prepared for it and because it was a day
of our itinerary), although we certainly still tried to maintain focus on
savoring the journey.
Savoring anything on this day was hard for me in
particular, though. I'd felt the beginnings of a sore throats days
earlier. That blossomed over time and really took a lot out of me on this
day of travel. Because my throat was messed up, my nose was implicated
too. Running and running. Worse, though, it made managing my
typically bad (when not managed) ear symptoms when flying impossible.
Even though I felt like dogshit thrashed by a boot, I tried to be a trooper
throughout. I got us to Dalaman safe and returned the rental car
unscathed and I tried to keep my bellyaching reasonable, since it was our
honeymoon and all.
Because of how I felt and the fact that the freak storm
of truly epic proportions (later Googling showed planes beat to hell by the
hail; rivers running on the city's main streets; and, explosions at the city's
port) had just happened--we just popped over to a restaurant called Babylonia
around the corner from our hotel (Metropolis) which apparently is owned by the
same person. We had a meze platter, stuffed semolina balls (with mince
meat and spices), and garlic butter mushrooms. Despite the fact that we
didn't actually vet the place and it was a matter of convenience--it really hit
the spot.
Beyond that, they had Guinness, which I ordered since I
was under the weather. I'll try and make a long story short here: I was
sick for 18 months of the two years I lived in Spain with terrible and
prolonged lung complications; eventually I took a trip to Liverpool, England;
while there, I drank significant amounts of Guinness; then, I was better.
Moral of the story: I believe Guinness has curative powers. Only time an more
Guinness can really tell (which is what makes this a great working theory)...
Despite the above passage acknowledging the fact that not
everything has gone right (particularly on this day)--a careful reading reveals
the many silver linings to each bummer.
As the owner of Babylonia (and our hotel) said in
reference to the freak epic storm that had just ravaged the front outdoor patio
of his restaurant and the rooftop terrace bar of his (and our) hotel and the
entire city of Istanbul, "C'est la vie".
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