my feet don't want to go to sleep

The more you travel the better you think you’d get. Unfortunately the opposite happens. Because I know it normally works out, not only well, but better than expected, I have become more lax in planning. Before this nomadic life, I would have researched what area to stay in, looked up restaurants, and organized tours of exactly what I wanted to see. This is not how my trip to Turkey went.

I arrived after 3 days in Pakistan truly following the current. I had misunderstood the offering with Turkish Air, thinking their layover hotel offering was for your entire layover. With just one hotel night organized and 5 more nights to arrange, I arrived in the airport. I hadn’t slept much in the last couple days and I dragged myself to baggage claim. I tried to decide how much money to exchange while the belt rotated and eventually stopped. Shit. I walked over to the airline support staff showing them where my airtag said my bag was. After much back and forth with the ground staff it was found and brought to me.

Because I am cheap and apparently a masochist I decided to take public transport over a cab. I rolled my 50lb bag to the train and navigated it to the transfer point to my hotel. This is when it started to snow. Not only did I have no plans in Turkey, I didn’t know what to expect for winter. I was ill-prepared.

The transfer point was not an obvious transfer so I had to ask a couple people to direct me. None of them understood English but one could point well enough showing I had to exit and go left. I showed him the screenshots of my maps app my service not strong enough to hold maps live. Outside of the station as the snow flakes fell I saw the other train across the intersection.

I transferred and exited at my station. The walk looked short on google maps. What it did not show was a steep climb down and a steep climb up. I shuffled slowly not wanting to roll down the now wet with snow sidewalk. A man saw my struggle and offered to help me in Turkish. This is how I arrived to the hotel, wet, cold, and tired. I checked in and showered. Sitting on the bed I said to myself “ok you need to organize your life”.

I ordered room service, a casaer salad and fries, and joined the wifi. I booked the gorgeous Marriott right downtown for the next 4 days. Next, I booked two history tours and a coffee experience, and committed to an expensive 2 day tour of Cappadocia. It came with a ridiculous plan involving me taking a 7am flight on Friday, touring Cappadocia for that day and the following, flying back later that evening, leaving a 6 hour layover before my flight to Miami.

Now that everything was booked, I watched the snow fall quietly on this ancient city from my distant hotel on the hill. The call to prayer rang over as the sun set behind the clouds turning gray to black. I went to sleep feeling confident in my plans and unfortunately reaffirming my thought that you can just show up and figure it out.