Getting there

I started off yesterday by begging a ride of the developer at my um, developement to the train station and then realizing I forgot my camera. Well that wouldn't do, so I ended up having to take a cab to the airport. An expensive mistake (the camera, not the cab, I was running late and wouldn't have made it otherwise.) So I was dwelling on that during the 1st 2 fligths (Atl - Dulles, Dulles - CDG). I always try to sleep on long flights but it never really happens.

Air France gave some nice encoutrements: headphones but also a mask and earplugs. I should have kept the earplugs but didn't think about it at the time. And you know what else? I love airplane food. It is almost always good. I think I like the variety of tiny things. I don't know, I understand that this is a minority viewpoint.

So then we get to CDG very early in the morning, about 6a local time. I've always wondered why they show you the ugliest part of CDG first - the arrivals go through very cold ugly steel and concrete corridors. Ten the deprture area is reasonably nice. Whatver, they also sceintifically calculate the chairs to make them impossible to sleep on so I've read a whole lot of Eric Schlosser's "Refer Madness". I knew I had 4 hours to burn until the flight to Istanbul, scheduled for 10A.



Then it was delayed. Eventually at 11 or so they tell us to go to a different gate at the other end of the terminal. Then we wait another 30 minutes or so. Then they put us on buses and drive us way around to the plane. And we wait some more. A van marked "Nationale Police" shows up and the cops hustle 2 guys into the back of the plane, in hoods and cuffs. People chatter (at least one takes a picture). Once we boarded, one of the detainees is just yelling at the cops. I think he was speaking French and I like to think I heard him repeating "I'm a Morrocan" ("Magrebi, Magrebi")*. The assumption, I suppose most people had was that they were illegal imigrant deportees. So after a lot of this guy screaming and the cops failing to shut him up, the pilot starts complaining to the cops. He says the deportees are a "risk to the passengers". I don't know about risk (there were at least 2 cops per unarmed, cuffed deportee) but they were a nuisance. After the cops versus pilot thing wnet back and forth a couple times superiors got called and the pilot won. The cops and detainees disembarked and we got in the air at least 2 hours after we were supposed to.

In Istanbul I walked right past the Visa counter (with no line) to the passport counter and waited in a short line. Then the guy told me I had to have a Visa. Then I went and got in the now prodigious visa line. Then back in a now interminable passport line. I also copped out and let this little old lady in front of me at the very end, and turned out she had two other ladies with her and their documents weren't straight. Plus, she didn't have a visa.

A train and a tram later and I'm in the heart of the city. It is definitely a metropolis. And definitely European, with a little asian around the edges - especially in driving styles a commerce.

Iyi Geceler boys and girls.

*The implication being "I'm an illegal Morrocan, not Turk you idiot, don't send me to Turkey.

PS - 1 good thing about having to go back for the visa? I found a 10 quid bill on the floor.