Welcoming mom and her jetlag to Istanbul [YQrtw Day 48 May 25]

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

As I mentioned in my old post talking about Turkey, my mom has joined in on my round-the-world trip during the Turkey leg (lol) of my trip.

This is the first time that she’s travelling to Europe so I promised to pick her up when she arrives. The hostel I was staying at had a 5:15am shuttle for 5 euro and I gladly paid it so I do not need to figure out the public transport.

Since there was not much traffic at 5:15 am, the bus reached the airport in 15 minutes time. That was majorly fast.

When the shuttle bus dropped off passengers at the international departure hall, I asked the driver if he was going to the international arrivals, thinking that he would pick up the other passengers.

Mom didn’t come out into the arrival halls until an hour after the plane landed. We took the tram from the airport back to my hostel.

We got off our tram one stop too late because I didn’t remember the stop correctly. However, we were in luck as the famous pastry shop, HafIz Mustafa 1864, was just in front.

We breakfasted on three buns, Turkish tea and a cafe latte. The food in the display window looked more attractive than our brown buns but no one was buying the Turkish delights that early in the morning.

We got back to my hostel. I quickly packed my things and we shifted to another hotel down the road. The new room was huge and has three beds. How awesome is that.

The next thing I had on my to-do was less awesome. Remember how I bought a new SIM yesterday? Turns out, even though I paid 25 lira for 1GB internet, the data package was never linked to my phone. (I found out from the guy working at Turkcell in the airport.)

Despite being confrontation-phobic, I had to go back and plead for my 25 lira package.

When I got back, the lady who served me wasn’t in. None of her Turkish colleagues spoke enough English but one of them have the bright idea to bring up Google Translate where we “chat” with translations.

After they found out about my problem, they had a heated discussion and even called someone up. However, they did give me my 1GB data back so I am very thankful.