At about 7am I got up and made my way to Sabiha Gökçen Airport (the smaller of the two airports in Istanbul on the Asian side). I love the irony of Istanbul. I live in Europe, but I have to go to Asia if I want to fly back into Europe. How silly. For a city of Istanbul’s size, Sabiha Gökçen (code SAW) is very small. To check in and go through security took me no more than 20 or 30 minutes, which meant I way overestimated how early I needed to come to the airport.
The coding of Sabiha Gökçen as SAW was interesting to me for two reasons. Firstly, the letter “W” is not in the Turkish language. More importantly, however, the letter “w” has been used as a symbol of the Kurdish separatist movement. For example, this year the Turkish government allowed the Kurds to celebrate Newruz (Nevruz in Turkish), which is the celebration of spring and rebirth. However, when Kurds tried to celebrate this holiday, the Turkish government forcefully put tape over the letter “W.” They did not want it to be displayed in public because of its political significance as distinctly Kurdish. These types of images were on the TV. So for this reason, it seems odd that Turkey would let this airport be coded SAW. Then again, Turkey does a lot of odd things.
I boarded my airplane around 11:30 and was once again reminded why foreign carriers are superior to American ones. Not only was I given an aisle seat upon my request, but I even managed to get an exit row seat. Yay for extra leg room. The flight itself featured a free drink and a small lunch meal, which included a sandwich, a pastry, a salad, and ice cream. I could never imagine any American carrier doing that for a three hour flight. When I took a flight from Dallas to California (3.5 hours), I only got 1 small drink.
I landed in Frankfurt and made my way to the main terminal. Unfortunately, the only way to check my email and get Brenton’s instructions was to buy a wireless internet card for almost 10 euros. I suppose this is the price I pay for not planning ahead of time. I then went to the money exchange place and learned why you should never ever exchange money if you can ever help it. The Euro was about 2.2 to the Lira at the time. However, after commission 100 Lira (about 55 US Dollars at the time) only got me 33 Euro (this at a time when the dollar was trading 0.79 to the Euro). Needless to say, I hate those exchange places and avoid them at all costs.
I found out when I checked my email that Brenton’s place was actually not that close to Frankfurt afterall. His parents were living in a small German town about an hour drive from the French border. It required me to take the Frankfurt metro to the train station. The metro was the most expensive one I have ever seen. It is done by distance travelled. One ride from the airport to the train station cost me 5 euros. I couldn’t believe it. The saddest part was that it was only 3 or 4 subway stops away. The machine to buy the tickets was also incredibly confusing. It was only in German, which was a bit surprising for an international city. Luckily, I found some Germans who were willing to help. The great thing about Germany is that just about everyone speaks English. There is virtually no language barrier. Their accents were very German, which was a bit humorous to me. However, I was grateful that Germans speak English and are generally willing to help. I boarded the subway and got to the train station. I paid for the train, got my ticket, and after a short call to Brenton’s cell phone, I was on my way to Landstuhl, Germany.
This ride was only my second encounter with the train system of Europe. I decided that I really liked it and I think it’s stupid that the US does not have something comparable. We need to build our infrastructure and have easy public transit like this (I had several train options for this town that was quite far in the middle of nowhere Germany). The only bad thing was that the trains were a bit expensive. Twenty six euro for a ticket is not my idea of cheap.
I arrived in Landstuhl in the late evening around 6:30. I was immediately greeted on the platform by both Brenton and his dad. His dad took my stuff and delivered it to their house. Meanwhile Brenton decided to take me out to dinner at this decent restaurant in Landstuhl. We walked inside and it was nice. Brenton told me I could order anything I wanted to eat and drink. Of course, since I was in Germany, it only made since for me to order a beer. I drank this drink called a Cola Weiser, which was a mixture of coke and beer. It turned out to be a bit sweet and quite good. Brenton drank a Radler, which is a mixture of sprite and beer. For my main course, I decided to get another authentically German food – Weinerschnitzel! After dinner, Brenton and I walked around the town a bit and then up the long hill back to his house. Once inside, I gave his parents a gift to thank them for letting me stay there. I bought them a thing of apple tea and a thing of lokum (Turkish delight). Both of these things are very Turkish and I thought they would enjoy them. Additionally, I bought Brenton a gift. I got him a nazarlik (Turkish all-seeing eye that is good luck). However, in the center of the larger pendant, instead of an eye, an Arabic word was written. I am not sure what it said, but I figured it was probably religious. I knew Brenton would like it for the sole purpose that it was written in Arabic.
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