I’m traveling again

Its been a couple years since I’ve traveled internationally as I’ve been too scared to book a trip. I’ve done some domestic travel but the fear of the world shutting down again lingered over me so I hesitated to book a trip outside the USA. I eventually worked through that fear and decided to go somewhere, anywhere. I decided to pick a country I have traveled easily to before and book a plane ticket. I’ve been to Spain twice before but felt like there was so much I didn’t have time to see on previous trips therefore decided that was a good choice for my starter trip post-covid-19 (yes I know covid-19 is not over yet). I recently received another booster shot so feel confident I am protected against contracting covid-19 (I was wrong, but more about that in a little while). So I begin creating a spreadsheet with possibly itineraries and start watching airline ticket prices. The tickets are way more than I want to pay and the prices are not coming down; it appears I waited too long to book. I am not giving up on this trip though. I close my eyes and book an airfare that is refundable. Who knows if I’ll be able to travel forever, its just money, right?!? I decide to do an open-jaw flight since there is virtually no price difference in booking a roundtrip from the same airport and I dislike backtracking when I travel. The plan is to start in Madrid then head south and finish up north to fly home from Barcelona.

A couple days after I book my airfare I start feeling under the weather. It is probably allergies I tell myself since 100% of the time up to this point it has been allergies – confirmed by countless negative covid-19 tests. This feels a little different though and I have plans to do a road trip to visit family and some friends in a couple days so I take my home test like I always do proactively. This time it comes up immediately as positive. I confirm it with a PCR test. I get sicker the next day so I cancel the week’s plans. I have had my first case of covid-19. It runs it course like a bad cold that symptoms are treated well by over the counter cold medicine. I don’t believe I even contract a fever. I get slightly worried that this sickness will interfere with my international travel plans. Thank goodness I bought refundable airfare. I test again 5 days in and I’m still testing positive even though I just have some congestion and tiredness lingering. I decide to wait until day 10 to test again so I’m not wasting too many tests. The CDC website says I am good to go in public now but I continue to mask up and avoid social events until I do end up testing negative. Luckily I still have a couple weeks left before my trip so I go full-speed into planning mode.

I’m definitely out of travel practice but I guess its like riding a bike since I am checking off my to-do list quickly once I begin. Many of the activities planned are ones I missed on previous visits so I make sure to book in advance many things. My itinerary is jam-packed and I am moving around way more than I like but its only for a couple weeks so I can handle it, right? (Note: Nonstop travel is a recipe for me getting sick while I travel. Luckily I already got the covid-19 immunity temporarily out of the way). I am packing way too many things since as I get older I need more things to simply survive. At the time of me packing USA still required a negative covid test in order to return to my home country so two of the things packed are two very large covid-19 tests (I pack two in case one fails as we are advised) that I order them off the internet because they have to be the kind that are confirmed online with a nurse. I had no idea how large they would be when I order them. I am super annoyed by how much room they are taking up in my day pack. Other than that I do have a good packing list though that has been developed from years and years of travel. I have 95% of the things I could ever need on that list. I just need to now go through the exercise where I narrow the pile of clothes I am taking to smaller and smaller piles.

I finally reduce things down to a sufficient size and do a test pack before the busy weekend before I leave. The flight is on Monday and the weekend before is busy with plans – I do end up canceling my Sunday plans though due to exhaustion since I don’t want to wear myself out BEFORE my travel.

Oh and I am using my old backpack that is falling apart since I can’t seem to find a new backpack that I like. A little sewing repair before I go gets it to a good enough state to travel ….

Can you see where I did my sewing repairs?

Turkish food

I had many different food items in Turkey during my time there that I thought it would be appropriate to have a post dedicated to food items.

Fermented carrot juice is not as good as I thought it would be.

Dinner on a rooftop bar

Vegetable plate

Raki is an anise drink like Sambucca or Ouzo.

Stuffed bread and some sort of dried fruit pudding at Topkapi Palace

Manti

In Cappadoccia

Old Cappadocia Cafe & Restaurant

The bread dipped in that spice and oil is heavenly

Turkish ice cream is sweet, creamy, stretchy and sticky at the same time.

Turkish delight

That time when I should have used google translate and did not I end up eating a raw meat sandwich. Luckily I did not die.

Random Istanbul

In case you haven’t figured it out these posts are many months old. It has been impossible to keep up daily with my travels. And most of the time the internet is terrible. I am playing catch up with stuff back home or trying to sort through and save travel photos. What I write is from what I remember of my travels and if I am lucky, excerpts from notes I took.

For this post I am back in Istanbul. I planned this return as a “catch all I missed before” plus get some chill time before I head to Egypt. I am heading to Egypt and Jordan for a couple weeks on a fast paced group tour. I purposely planned this downtime prior.

The time was spent pretty well; besides the poor internet I was able to catch up on some things, I bought a couple articles of clothing that would be more Middle East appropriate, and I made one more shipment home (boy is it expensive!).

The following pictures are some of the attractions I stopped at.

Basilica Cistern

My new hotel is off Istiklal Street. It is a busy area but less mentally demanding then staying in the Sulthanhmet area. I mean in the Sultanhmet area I always had to be on guard. In my new location it was more chill: I got way less male attention and shop owners were not aggressive. If I go back to Istanbul I will stay in this area or on the Asian side (as my new Turkish friend recommended).

Balloon watching

My hotel is close to the top of the hill in Goreme. A short walk uphill (and a small “admission” charge) is the place to be for sunsets and to watch the balloons fly in the morning.

Today I wake up before sunrise and walk up the hill to catch the balloons. I think I am too early because I have to wait a while for the balloons to rise. I do get a picture of the sun starting to rise through.

Off in the instance I can see some balloons inflating. A short while later they are in the air.

It is beautiful to see.

Some get very close to the observation hill. At times it looks like they can be touched.

Here is a fun video showing how close they got.

Cappadocia Red Tour

A couple days after my not so great green tour I take the Cappadocia Red Tour. I thought I may have overreacted a couple days ago but after taking the red tour with a different vendor I know I am correct in my opinion. The red tour is well organized and the guide is very personable. His name is Sonny and he made our day sunny.

First stop is a view of Uchisar Castle.

Next is Goreme Open Air Museum

A favorite of mine in the Open Air Museum is the Dark Church. It is a separate ticketed option but well worth it in my opinion. The artwork inside is very nice (no photos allowed).

Love Valley

I have no idea why they call it that. <sarcasm>

Avanos pottery demonstration

The pottery is nice but it is way too early to start weighing my backpack down so I forgo any purchases.

Then we stopped at lunch. I don’t remember what I ate but I had to try all the desserts on the buffet.

Before we went back out sightseeing we stopped for a silk demonstration. It is interesting to learn how silk items are made.

Aaaannd the demonstration of the rugs. Some are nice enough to tempt me but they are so expensive. I just can’t purchase one….especially with no job and no permanent place to stay.