Turkish Hospitality Taken to a Whole New Level

The long wait to my holiday came to an end when I finally boarded the plane, last minute, to my most anticipated trip to Istanbul. As if I had never travelled before, I couldn't hold my excitement. I felt like jumping up and down, and I'm pretty sure it showed on my face.Hungry, tired, with a cabin bag held in one hand, while trying to munch down the pizza I bought last minute, I make my way to my seat. I could see people looking at me, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was constantly smiling or because I looked ridiculous. Least bothered about all

the eyes on me, I made my way to the seat thinking of Istanbul and seeing the Blue Mosque; I had been dreaming about it for more than ten years.

As I settled in, a whiff of strong odour hit me so hard that it almost made me faint. The strong smell belonged to an nasty rapper who was dressed in a pair of loose shorts with a loose see through singlet, all red in colour along with red headsets. He sat next to me and I almost choked on my pizza. With the speed of light, he plugged in some cables, chargers and wires around, trapping me to my seat in that unbearable smell. I understand the oxygen masks in the plane are for emergencies only, but for a minute I was hoping mine to fall down at the moment.

I found the strength to stand up, holding on to my pizza, and asked for space to pass. I went storming to the crew and asked to be moved to another seat because I wasn’t able to stay on my seat for the next four and a half hours, with a blocked nose, next to "Snoop Dogg".

The cabin crew nodded politely and found me another seat few rows behind. Happy, smiling and eating at the same time, I thought to myself that at least the gentleman seated next to me doesn’t smell.

As I wrapped myself in blankets, ready to take a nap, the next seat neighbor started talking to me. Yes! That’s all I needed. But how could I blame him. I was looking like a sociable person with nothing but smiles to offer while thanking the crew left and right.

For the next three hours, my neighbor constantly talked, about everything; life, commitment, his wife, business and of course me, what I was doing and why I was travelling alone to Istanbul. He seemed like a nice person to be around. After a while, he decided to do some work on his laptop, and I decided to watch an intriguing movie, Hidden Figures. The talkative neighbor tried a few times to strike a conversation again, but I was totally engrossed in the movie.

As soon as the movie finished, the first question popped up: “How are you going to reach your hotel?”

I looked at him with a bit of amusement and replied, “I hired a taxi to pick me up from the airport”. 

“Oh.” his replay was, “I wish I met you before so I could have had my driver drop you off, and you could join me for dinner while I wait for my connecting flight”.

I politely thanked him for his thought and told him I had plans for the evening.

Once on ground and as the plane taxied, the talkative neighbor invited me again and suggested I cancel my taxi booking so I can have a relaxed dinner by the sea since he noticed I wasn’t eating during the flight. To be honest, I was starving, but I had to be careful since I was traveling alone. At the end of the day, even though he seemed nice, he was still a stranger.

But since when do I follow any rules or care about rules!? I decided to accept the invitation.

I saw him stop by the duty free on the way out to buy some perfumes. At this stage, my hunger was taking over me, and I was screaming inside like a wild animal. My stomach was roaring louder than a club on a weekend night. As I sat in his black SUV, he handed me a perfume he had bought, and thanked me for accepting the invitation to the dinner. Since I was a bit agitated, he thought he might as well try to calm me down by showing me his ID and the Forbes magazine he recently was in, but the truth was that my blood sugar levels were not supporting me in the situation.

Finally, we were seated at this amazing restaurant, thinking of nothing but food. I looked around. I was pretty much the only woman. All the men were dressed like James Bond while I looked like I had arrived at a grocery to buy toothpaste right after waking up. I saw nothing but luxurious cars parked outside. Everything looked fancy. I had not even showered in two days, I thought.

Honestly, I kind of liked the way my holiday started.

Once settled in and after he ordered the food, since the menu was in Turkish, he said, “I hope you don’t mind but I also invited a very good friend of mine to have dinner with us”.  The dinner went well, plenty of laughter and jokes. It turned out that he was a farmer while his good friend was a fashion designer.

We didn’t even realize as the time passed by. The “farmer” had to leave for his connecting flight. We said goodbye to each other and the “fashion designer” dropped me to my hotel. It is strange how you can end up laughing out loud and sharing food with complete strangers. My holiday started off pretty well. Great food with delightful people, all met by an accident thanks to the smelly wanted to be the  "brother of Snoop Dogg".