Vacation started off fairly smoothly. I passed the morning by packing and then visiting a friend. I figured this meant everything would go smoothly, and then I got to the airport. I went through the first two security points, checked in, went through passport control, and waited for them to announce the flight. Then, as I was going through the final security scan into the gate, the workers stopped me. They took my shaving gel, toothpaste, and small container of hand sanitizer.
I am not sure why they were so adamant about taking these things as they were, according to the website, allowable on the plane. It looks like that from now on, I will be unable to travel with only one bag, at least if I want to take anything on the plane with me.
The flight itself was uneventful. We went up, we landed. Of course we were an hour late, but that is nothing new from this airline. Normally I wouldn't have cared that I was an hour late, but I was planning on meeting someone at the airport in Istanbul and catch a train to Thessaloniki, Greece. Upon arrival to the airport, things went smoothly. I found Meredith very easily, and we boarded the metro.
We exited the metro to transfer to the tram. Unfortunately, we needed to buy another token in order to achieve this transfer. We didn't have enough money for the two of us, so Meredeth pulled money out of the ATM so we could purchase a couple of tokens. We hurried and boarded the first tram we saw. After the first couple of stops, I realized we were going in the wrong direction, so we got out and waited for one going in the other direction. We road back to where we started and waited to move on to the next station. Finally the tram started moving...in the wrong direction!
We got off at the very next stop, caught the next tram back, and got out. I was very grateful that as long as we didn't leave the gate, we wouldn't have to pay for anymore tokens. I just couldn't figure out why this tram didn't go where the sign said it would. We walked up to the turnstiles and looked around. Off to the right was another tram! We rushed onto that one and made it to the train station.
We ran into the train station only to find our train had left 5 minutes earlier! I looked at Meredith and asked her where she wanted to go. We decided that we would go to Belgrade. They were unable to sell us a ticket to Belgrade, so we went to Sophia, Bulgaria. We then got something to eat and waited for the train.
The train ride was long and uneventful. When we stopped at the border, passport control took Meredith's and my passports. He told me to go into the office and wait for him. I waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally he came from the train with only our two passports. The passport control guy stamped them and we were on our way. 9:30am Sophia!
No comments:
Post a Comment