DAYS 58-81, Sun MARCH 28TH TO TUE APRIL 20TH 2021 – Can Aunt's soup save us from Corona?

The strict restrictions are back again. Bars, restaurant closed, curfew now from morning 5:00 to 19:00. Getting bored with take away food and isolation.. yep, as I told you already we got Corona. On Tuesday night I started to feel I have maybe some fewer. I got headache also.. I was not sure if it was Corona as I did not really get any other symptoms except I was tired, but that could have been just because I did not sleep well.. Anyways I stayed at home and avoided others. When Gamze also got symptoms we went for the test and we both were positive. It was quite a hazzle to get the tests done. We visited few different hospitals. 

At hospital the line is not moving, cold and wet, get sick if you were not yet

At the public hospital there were huge lines outside. We would have had to stand there for few hours in rain to just get registered and did not know how long after that. My old trusty Converse shoes were also leaking and my socks were totally wet.. not much fun.. Even if we would not have Covid, we would have gotten flu of worse waiting there. So we went to a private hospital. One hospital was asking some 55€ for the test and we knew some had gotten it for half of it so we went to another. Finally we got it for about 35€ each. I think if I would have gone there day or two later I would have been already negative. 

We had just left our last accommodation so we locked ourselves to a hotel room for 10 days.. It was super boring.. I think that was the worse thing.. one room and nothing to do.. well we survived that after all.. my symptoms went away fast but Gamze’s did not. Headache and fewer did go away, but she also lost her taste and smell and continued coughing even after we left the isolation. Now I was expecting them to ask us questions about who we met and where we maybe got the disease, but nothing. We did get some medicine, but after investigating it, we did not take it. The medicine was supposed to be eaten just in the beginning of Corona to shorten the disease, but mine was basically over already when we got it. They did not tell us anything about the medicine, which was also odd.. Just some person came to the hotel to deliver it. Now what was surprising was that they actually did monitor we are in isolation. They called every other day from outside the hotel and asked us to show we are there.. well they asked Gamze, not me.. when I replied in English, they gave up and mumbled something and closed the phone 😊 

The hotel people were nice providing us with water, tea and coffee and other stuff when we needed and some friends also brought us food and snacks. It helped to get some extra access to some streaming services also, so thanks friends here and in Finland. 

While in captivity we made decision to leave Istanbul. As the corona numbers sky rocketed (with our help) the new restrictions were put in place and they sucked.. everything got closed again. Of course one day after we were to get out. Maybe it would be better somewhere else.. at least in South it would be warmer.. the weather in Istanbul just kept being bad.. So we booked flight only to find out afterwards that the flight company had 14 days quarantine instead of the 10 days we were going to stay in the hotel.. so we rebooked them to next Tuesday. 

We had to find a new place after the hotel.. we had to, because we could not stay there for another day.. Gamze got us a new place on the European side.

Sailing to Europe, you can see restaurants under the bridge

This Airbnb was interesting with 2 guys from a small village in Cappadocia now living in Istanbul selling carpets. We had a tiny room for ourselves and common area where the guys slept on sofas. Place was nice, but maybe more rooms would have made it better. One interesting thing here are the strange corridors in the middle of the houses that seem to be used for ventilation and for drying clothes. We had window in our room to that thing.

Looking up the thing you can see neighbour window and the sky

Was pretty scary to dry your landry there

Looking down you could see all kinds of trash in the bottom and I was scared to put our laundry there for I might drop something. These things seem to be normal here, but I have never seen such before in my life.

The first night Yusuf brought us some fruits as a welcome. We talked with the guys and they proved to be quite funny people. Quite different also to what we had in our last place. From a Commie anarchist academic to small town guys who never even finished school. The guys were selling carpets, but the business was super slow due the pandemic. 

Yusuf offered us traditional soup from Capadocia his Aunt had made. This was the best food so far in Turkey and perfect for people still recovering from Corona. Even Gamze was able to taste something.

The soup and white stuff

The soup is called Arabaşı and it is eaten with white jelly kind of stuff made of flour and some other stuff. The white stuff was a bit weird at the first time, but we were lucky there was lot of the soup and we ate it several times and in the end I had grown used to the white stuff.. The soup is really spicy and seems to have only little chicken in it with lot to chilis. Super good! Could be good also in Russian style with smetana or mayonnaise.

During the weekend curfew time was killed playing cards

Sadly the weather stayed bad and we could not do BBQ at the roof where they guys had build nice place to hang out. Well maybe the next time. Even though the place was small with 2 guys living with us it was super cozy. It did help they got some carpets from their business to the floors and walls. I did not buy any carpets even though I was promised a very special price.. 

As the weather kept bad, not much happened, we did not go out much, just waited to go South. On Monday 19th we visited again my University to get my residence permit. We are here soon for 90 days and can't be just tourists anymore. With residence permit I can stay until the end of our trip.

 

Still shitty weather, but happy to get the ID card

Police walking around the Uni with submachinegun

University wall topped with barbed wire

Time in Istanbul was coming to end atleast for now.. Antalya is calling.. 

We got to Antalya today after a night of not that much sleep. We had no problems to arrive even though there were lot of rumors about travel restrictions. It is super annoying the information here is unclear. All the students are asking how the things are and no one seems to know.. Anyways, the day was warm as we had hoped. Jacket and hoodie came off quicly when exiting the airport. +24 was pretty nice even for the tired travellers. Lets end with the first photo from here. We had 1 hour before the curfew to take a short walk around after finding our new accomodation.. 

Place looks good

Tomorrow I hope to do even some sports.. go for jogging or something.. see ya!