I had a Turkish Airlines flight at 12:00, and a strong recommendation to get to the airport three hours in advance. Back in July 2024, the outage of Microsoft systems caused chaos at the airport, and apparently the system has not completely recovered. Thus, my travel agent insisted on the three-hour margin. Since the flight was not an insane time, my parent had offered to drive me to the airport, but they “don’t believe in being at the airport three hours beforehand”. In the end, I negotiated a drop off a bit after 9:00.

I got to the baggage drop counter, which should have been a fast affair, but it was held up by a passenger who was checking in firearms – I was in the plane with a party of hunters. It was a bit creepy, because at some point they opened the gun cases for everyone to see, in the middle of the check-in line. Finally, Turkish Airlines opened a second counter while someone dealt with this traveller. I had my boarding pass, and my luggage was about 13 kg. I had packed an extra pair of shoes, long sleeved T-shirts, jeans and a couple of sweatshirts, along with a long cardigan that can be used as outerwear, blanket or even pillow as the situation requires – and I knew there were a lot of bus hours to come.

After checking in the luggage, I went through security and passport control, and found a seat until it was time to board. The boarding process was extremely efficient and fast, and we took off on time. We got lunch on the plane, and there was on board entertainment, so time passed quickly. Upon reaching Istanbul International Airport, there was a passport control upon exiting the plane, but I’m not sure what they were checking for, as everyone got waved through. Most passengers went onto connecting flights, and I headed off to immigration. I obviously chose the wrong line, as it took me a long time to clear it. I got my passport stamped – a brand new passport, and they stamped it, upside down, on page number 19, because why bother, I guess.

After clearing immigration – I was not even aware of customs – I had to go to a particular gate to meet the representative from Oxin Travel outside the airport. I had bought an e-sim for my phone to have “unlimited internet for ten days”, so I activated that on my way, and it worked very well. When I went out the gate, I was supposed to look for a person with the travel agent’s logo, but I was surprised that there was actually a woman screaming my name. I was the only passenger on the tour that came on that flight.

She took me to the car park, where she left me alone to find our driver. When she came back, she told me about Istanbul’s day trips and sent me the information via WhatsApp, and recommended stuff to do. I booked both day trips because the whole point was having to plan little and save mental energy. Hindsight being 20/20, I regret that choice.

The drive to Istanbul | İstanbul took just above one hour, 20 minutes of that were spent trying to get out of the airport. It was already dark when we arrived in town, and I was able to catch a glimpse of Galata Tower Galata Kulesi. We reached three-star Hotel Bi·setun around 19:00 maybe, and the representative and the driver left to have me do the check-in on my own – good thing that she had confirmed on the phone that the hotel was expecting me, because the way we pulled into the area made it look a bit shady.

During check-in, the hotel kept my passport, and that was a bit creepy. When I got to the room, I found that the hotel had a nice system where you could order food through a special webpage – it was like an outsourced room service that could be paid by credit card, which was extremely convenient. I ordered a pacanga pastry paçanga böreği, similar to a quesadilla, and a lentil soup mercimek Çorbası.

I then went down to reception to buy a bottle of water and retrieve my passport. After the food arrived, I ate, had a shower and settled down to sleep. It was a rather uneventful journey, to be honest, but somehow it did not feel… smooth. The bit about being the only person picked up at the airport was weird, and communicating with the representative via WhatsApp a bit awkward.