Juniper
Crossing from Asian side of Istanbul to European side
The bus journey from Cappadocia to Istanbul seemed slightly shorter than the trip from Bursa to Cappadocia, probably because we stopped for lunch in Ankara so the ride from Ankara to Istanbul was bearable. The highlight of the night was crossing from the Asian side to the European side of Istanbul via the Bosphorus Bridge which is a suspension bridge with steel towers. The bridge that connects two continents is truly a spectacular sight.
Once we crossed over to the European side en route to dinner, our Turkish tour guide pointed out the famous Rams Park, football stadium that can accommodate almost 54,000 people and is home ground to Galatasaray. Pity we had no time to visit this iconic stadium.
Our dinner was grilled chicken wings on rice. I am curious about one thing though – every time our meal had French Fries, we always got a token amount. It wasn’t even a handful. I wonder why the quantity was always so ungenerous. That goes for the rice too, it’s like a kid’s portion. No complaints about the grilled chicken wings, they were excellent. At this meal, I sat next to 3 influencers who of course were friends with my serial snorer roommate. Best to keep my mouth shut about her to these fellas since I didn’t want to injure HER feelings, still had to endure 2 more nights of her endless snoring after 3.30am. From that time onwards, all I could do was pray time would go by quickly so that I could go down for breakfast at the crack of dawn. It was hard to believe that such a well-dressed person by day could turn into a snoring machine by night. There were many nights when I wanted desperately to flee to the lobby which would be infinitely quieter than my torturer’s noise. It got to a point where I kept a great distance from her by day as her voice and laughter exacerbated my PTSD and with no solution in sight, it made the trip very, VERY unpleasant.
