Tag 1 - MUN-IST

Hello my friends,

today was the first day of my longer break. It went from Munich Airport to the Bosporus to Istanbul, departure at 09:40. The flight was relaxed, only during landing there were nasty turbulence, not exactly conducive to my fear of flying ;-). When I went through passport control and baggage claim out of the airport building, I also knew why, it was quite windy. The new airport is a colossus and very impressive. To reach my hotel in Istanbul, I chose not to take a taxi, but to use available public transport suggested by Google Maps. First, I was supposed to take a bus to Istanbul to a kind of bus terminal. The signage at the airport was very sparse, and it took me some time to find the bus departure location. When it didn't work right away to buy the IstanbulKart, a card that can be used for all means of transportation in and around Istanbul, I was about to switch back to taking a taxi. You could choose German as the language at the machine, but in the intermediate steps of the payment process, it switched back to Turkish. People who spoke Turkish were present and they helped me, so it worked out in the end. The ride was uncomfortable, the bus was crowded to the last standing place, but I think I only paid a little over 20 TL, equivalent to about 1 Euro at that time. Not comparable to the offer from my hotel, which would have taken me from the airport to the hotel for 35 Euros. I saved this money and later partly spent it in the restaurant, see picture. All in all, the transfer took about 2 1/2 hours and was exhausting. So, day 1 ended.

Best regards