Day 1, Monday February 1st 2021 - Oh shit we almost missed it!

 

Day after my birthday we started our journey from Bochum in Germany. It was good the flight from Dusseldorf was not too early.. Gamze  had organized everything, but this time checking to the flight did not go as normally. As we did not check in the day before and the online check in did not work we arrived to the counter a bit late but were lucky as there were still someone there and we got the check in done. Good also that we took an earlier train or we would have missed the whole flight and our adventure would have had a slightly shitty beginning. Even though we were late from the start of the boarding there was no problem as the flight was slightly late. Some 3 hours later we arrived to Istanbul. Even though our trip did not go perfectly I was really happy to go on a trip when someone else arranges everything. I have been doing that before and knew it requires some work.. Istanbul, the ancient Constantinople opened up to us as grey but somewhat warm place.

Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW)

We landed at Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW) that is located at the Asian side of the city. After some wandering and asking around we found a bus that took us to the European side of the city to Taksim. Click for route map The instructions I got from my universty told a taxi would take some 35min and cost only 120TL, which to me does not seem too much and I would recommend it to others at least now during Corona and the special rules. In general there are cheaper and easy ways for transportation, but this first drive would be easiest with taxi. For me it helps I have a Turkish speaking partner. Maybe the taxi would have taken more than 35min though as the bus took almost an hour and we did not even get all the way with it. (cost of the bus 24TL) Well actually I do not know the route of the bus and as I was not familiar with the map at that point it could be we actually passed the final destination at Besiktas on our way to Taksim. Also as it already had gotten dark we really did not see much else than lot of car lights. After the bus we ran into problems with the rules and regulations. You need a thing called HES code here to use public transport and to enter shopping malls etc.

The HES code

More info about the HES code The code is a personalized code implemented by the Ministry of Health It was intended to track travelers in Turkey. One way to get is is an APP, but we were told the App never works so I did not even try it. You also need a Istanbul card with money loaded to it and they need to be registered together. Also a local sim card is needed I guess for the HES code app to work or something We managed to purchase the Istanbul cards, but it did us no good because we did not have the other needed components or the understanding for example how to link the code to the card. Asking for help some friendly young man from Northern Africa adviced us to take a taxi, but we found it to be not the price we expected and jumped out after some 50m ride. Continuing by walking we asked again help and a local man talked long with Gamze giving lot of advices and tips. We thanked him and said bye bye and headed for  a group taxi. The group taxis are called Dolmus and they cost 4TL, but we are still unclear do they work everywhere in Istanbul or just between these two places. Anyways the idea is to wait until the taxi is full and then the ride starts. Dolmus took us pretty close to our destination. Click here for route map Next to the stop there was a square with some young people skate boarding and drinking beer (looks like a nice place and a place we need to return to and hang out as my girlfriend stated :) ) Again we (Gamze) asked around and the young people gave us the directions and we continued walking along some maze like small streets. Based on this short time here I can say the locals are super firendly and helpful and I got really nice feeling of them. 

After some wandering around we finally found the right address, but of course there were no-one there. We were a bit tired, hungry and thirsty so while I waited in the corridor Gamze stepped out to buy us few beers that really helped to kill the time. We had found the place to stay through the Erasmus students by Gamze and skipped the hostel we first planned to go to. Our plan was originally to go to a hostel and then look for some nice place to stay at, but this worked even better.. well if only someone was there to open the door :) The problem also was we did not want to use mobile data roaming so Gamze as a brave person she is, went ringin the neighbour doors and asking if she could use their wifi to contact with our hosts. :) Wifi, even though a somewhat unstable & weak was found and it worked just enough so we got message through that we are waiting here. While this all was happening I made friends with the cat in a carboard box in the corridor. :) Later we found this was actually our hosts cat. Several other cats visited the corridor also. It seems there are lot of them here. Maybe not too nice for me as I am allergic. After some 40 min of waiting Bouzhra arrived and apologizing to us a lot for not being there. There had been some miscommunication and she had waited for us during the day. Well we got in, finished our beers and after a while Pedro who was our contact to this place also arrived home. Pedro is also a student at the same university as Gamze. He is a young adventurous man from Brazil. One of our roommates Özgyr failed to arrive back home that night, because he was taking part in a demonstration at the Boğaziçi university, the university I am going to study at. The police had surrounded them so they could not leave the premises. It has been the tradition of the universities to select their leader by themselves, but the current government has changed the law and nominated their choice as the leader. This politican nomination does not agree with the students or the faculties and the student have stood against it. After eating some really nice falafel we finally went to sleep with our heads full of images of the things we saw and heard already in Istanbul. This promises to the quite and adventure, maybe even more we expected. I am eager to wake up to the next day for more!