Wow, I've always wanted to travel the world since I can remember. For my 18th birthday I got my passport and couldn't wait to use it. Here I am 7 years later and I finally have STAMPS in my passport. I never would have thought when I began this new adventure in my life I would get to the opportunity to go so many places. The first opportunity to leave North America was in August when I left Indiana to go to Dubai to see the culture and get to know M's family. Here I am two months later sitting in a hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey. Mahmood had an interview with an University so I was able to join him for the trip.
We left at midnight Wednesday October 13th to head to the airport. Our flight was leaving at 4am Thursday so we figured we would go and sleep at the airport till it was time to board. We able to get to the airport early, but got very little sleep before the flight. The terminal smelled like a smoke room. As we walked up and down the terminal trying to find some place to sleep that didn't smell like cigarette smoke. Now days most airports have "smoking rooms". It felt to me that there should have been a non-smoking room instead. All of the smoking room had doors, but ALL of the doors were open so the whole place was being filled with smoke. Anyway, enough about that. We flew with Singapore airlines and it was very nice. The plan wasn't full so we had plenty of room to move about. It was a great flight!
We arrived in Turkey at 7:30am. Our first stop was a restroom, then I needed to go and get my visa. It's kinda funny I had to have a visa and M didn't. I paid my 20 dollars and received a sticker, then we were off to get our passport stamped, then to get our luggage. We were greeted my the driver who would take us to our hotel. As we walked out to the car I couldn't believe how cold it was. After living in a place with the humidity so high and the temperature in the 90's it was refreshing. Even though it was cold and rainy it was so nice to see green everywhere. The weather was cold and rainy, but that didn't stop us from seeing the city.
