With immaculately polished shoes but exhausted and somewhat crumpled I returned from Istanbul last night. A friend from highschool and I spent one week in this chaotic, overwhelming giant of a city, mostly following the path beaten by millions of tourists before, admiring mosques and learning about history. What stood out were exploring Kadıköy and spending time with lovely Turkish women, and doing both together on our last day was the culmination of our stay.
Short as the trip was, the return didn’t come one day too early. My pinky toe had developed a blister two days earlier and was by Saturday completely surrounded with a shapeless bag of jelly, the little bone moving around aimlessly and most painfully. The morning of our departure I moved in a way that would not even have tricked the most gullible of apes into trying to walk upright.
Before a full account of the vacation appears on my webpage I want to share one story that is only peripherally related to Istanbul. Why is it that security checks take place in the most uncoordinated of ways? Upon leaving the plane in Milano, I had to pass a metal detector, but there was no way I could have obtained a bomb on board. Similarly, there were two checks at Atatürk airport, despite the conspicuous absence of weapons in the duty free shop in between. I would like to think that security is an eminently important aspect in air travel, but it is administered in such a haphazard and illogical way that I can only shake my head. But at least I made it back with no problems.
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