Istanbul Part 2; A Late Trip during Snowfall
Assalamualaikum.
It was a very
sudden visit to Istanbul. I needed to be there at the end of the week, and I
was not in the right time to skip any classes because the exam was nearly
coming. We found a cheap flight ticket to Istanbul and booked it right away,
and I used my Turkish Airlines miles to buy another flight back. To sum it up,
I nearly only stepped my foot 24 hours there –even less.
My arrival was on
Sabiha Gokcen Airport. It was my first time going into this airport. I met kak
Zulfa and we took a 1-hour-bus straight away to the edge of Asia-side of
Istanbul, continued by taking a 0.50 kurus steamboat (I cant even believe why
on earth is this so cheap) crossing the Bosporus Strait to the Europe-side of
Istanbul.
The scheduled
flight back to Samsun was on the 6 am right in the next day. It was impossible
to travel back into the airport in the morning, because there was no public
transportation operated before 4 am. Thus I had to go the night before.
It was on March,
and out of sudden, as I began my trip, the snow was falling.
lah kok saljuan.
Hmmmm. Ok.
It was a long
journey going back into the Sabiha Gokcen airport. I had to take a bus to
Eminonu; just to find that the boat that crossing over the Bosporus Strait to
Kadikoy did not operated at night. I ended up walking accros the Galata Bridge
to Karakoy, and took the very last boat into Kadikoy. I continued the trip by
taking the 1-hour-bus into the airport.
I arrived in the
Sabiha Gokcen Airport at 1 am in the morning.
.....and then I realized
that my flight was actually depart from the other airport; Ataturk Airport.
Si mba memang yah mencari kerjaan
aja :”)))
.
.
.
Jangan panik,
inget kata bapak, gak boleh panik.
The snow was
still falling outside.
I asked the security
if there is any shuttle bus that connected these two airports; Ataturk Airport is
located in Europe-side of Istanbul and I was standing right in the center of
its opposite side. Yes, we have the shuttle bus service, he said. But it would
operated at 4 am, and there was no way I could make it only 1 hour into Ataturk
Airport.
As I went outside
the airport to the bus stop, I found that the same bus that brought me all-the-way
to Kadikoy a day before was there. I jumped straight into it. Ok, nice and
settled.
Now what?
There was no
boat, bus, or train operated late than 12 pm. The only way to cross the
Bosphorus Strait was using a public car. Accompanied only by Google Maps, I walked
down the street in Kadikoy and try to find this
car-that-I-dont-even-know-how-it-looks-like.
So, this car
brought me crossing the Bosphorus Strait until Taksim (yep, another new place
for me), where the Google Maps said, I could find a shuttle bus for Ataturk
Airport.
The snow was falling
pretty hard that night, and again, I walked down the street of Taksim in order
to look for this airport shuttle bus.
Somewhere in Taksim
It was around 3
am in the morning when I finally found these bus parked in a small street near...
nowhere (I didnt even know where I was!). Still, I had to wait outside until
the driver came at around 3.30 am, before I could warm myself sitting in the
bus. The trip was not even 1 hour long, so gratefully I managed to arrive at
Ataturk Airport at 5 am and went board on time.
the life savior
I fell asleep
right after I got into the airplane; it hadn’t even departed yet! Couldnt
remember anything after that, I took a shuttle bus from Carsamba Airport in
Samsun into my university, and took another bus into my dormitory, and reached
my very own room hours after.
Alhamdulillah....
Pelajarannya, sebelum berangkat ke bandara manapun, perhatikan detail flightnya baik-baik yah. Jangan salah tempat :)
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