Wow. So much has happened since that last post. I shall try and keep it brief, so that I don’t lose your attention. Also, posts *will* be more regular – I hope to eventually end up posting at the same time each day.

Ok, first things first. Ellen was dumb and waited til the last minute to pack. The result: rushed packing, sprinting out the door, speeding down the road in a monstrous, yet hardly fuel efficient truck, only to arrive at the airport safely, soundly, and still with an hour to spare. Pshh and they said airport travel these days is hectic (note: heavily ironic statement).

Sitting in RDU, waiting for my plane to take off, I pull out my handy dandy notebook with my ‘To Accomplish’ list of things to do before leaving for Turkey. Top of the list: Learn Turkish. Hmm. Fail. Read Turkish novel. Again, fail. Refresh memory of Turkish history. Does skimming Wikipedia count? I put away my notebook to counteract my growing feelings of inadequacy.

So, the first leg of the trip goes smoothly and I start thinking that maybe, just maybe, this time my flight plans will all go smoothly. You know, planes taking off on time, luggage arriving where it should. I seem to have repeatedly bad luck with such things and my hopes were beginning to rise that this might be my day. Silly Ellen. Why should this time be any different? Foolish foolish foolish.

I say this because in Newark, I go print out my next boarding pass and oh what’s this? Oh my connecting plane is cancelled? But why? Despite repeated inquiries, the only answer I receive is “It’s not volcanic ash”. Thanks. So now I am pissed. I have to be in Turkey in 14 hours. And the line at the Lufthansa desk is maybe 50 people long. Sighing I get into the line, only to be tapped on the shoulder. “Excuse me miss, but the end of the line is back there.” I turn and there, stretched for miles, I kid you not, are people waiting to get to the Lufthansa desk. Yay.

Cue frantic phone calls to the ‘rents and bitter texts to anyone who will listen to me rant. Normally I am a very easy going person. Not now. Bad Ellen has been unleashed as I angrily start planning my attack on Lufthansa, Newark, and the whole state of New Jersey (which deserves it). Luckily, after waiting in line an hour and a half and still only halfway to the front of the line, I receive a call from my Dad. He was at a beach weekend with his Beta brothers and with the whole house searching vigorously online for me (someone they never even met), they found and booked me another flight and got Lufthansa to cover it! [Big shout out to John for finding the flight and the Beta class of 1968 for all their help!]

So yay! I was then on my way to Zurich. Spent a pleasant hour or so in Switzerland. Awesome mountains (see above). And seriously, that was the best flight of my life. Not only did I have a window seat (which I loooove) but there was no one sitting next to me! So I immediately curled up across the two seats and passed out. Some people might have trouble sleeping on planes but not this girl. Then I took another flight from Zurich to Istanbul via Turkish Airways (slept on this one too—a recurring trend—despite being cramped between two tobacco-reeking, overweight Turkish men).

So finally, ISTANBUL (♪not Constantinople♪). I’m here! Got a visa, my passport stamped, money exchanged, and then out the airport to find a taxi to take me to the hotel. Thank God I only took carry-ons with me, otherwise my luggage would be who knows where. So I stand awkwardly outside til a cab driver notices me and we’re off. He speaks some English (and I am ashamed that I don’t speak any Turkish), but we end up having this GREAT conversation. His name is Adem and he loves his city. He gives me all these great advice about where to go and visit. He also said he thought I was 14 years old, maybe 15. Thanks Amed. But yes, great conversation, and at the end, he gives me his number and says I’ll always have a friend here and to let him know if I ever have any cab problems. The kicker? We’re now Facebook friends!

So I arrive safely at my hotel. Everyone else has left by this point. Omid left me a message though so I successfully manage to reunite with the group (it is like 6pm by this point). We head off to the Blue Mosque – Sultan Ahmed Mosque, built 1616 during the Ottoman Empire. AMAZING! Absolutely gorgeous. And, as I remarked to Omid, if I were to built something, it would look like that. Unfortunately, Ellen is an idiot and forgot to bring the camera. But I am going back and will have plenty of pictures to post in the near future.

This thing is huge, but amazingggg. I’ll give more deets later, but I’m tired and should go to bed. To sum up the day, I had some delicious shish kebabs for dinner, though it was raining and we couldn’t sit on the roof :/.

Ooh the evening call for prayer just sounded. Did you know only one guy does that, everyday, five times a day? That’s his job, sing the call for prayer. Yet no vacations, no sick days….

Interesting.