Istanbul Part 2; A Late Trip during Snowfall

by - 3:40 AM

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 :”)))
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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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