Istanbul Airport
Hello all,
Just a quick note to say that I have arrived in Turkey! I’m at a hotel in the Istanbul airport and will fly to Alanya tomorrow morning. My flights were fine, if full of bad maskers. On the MSP-Chicago leg, one woman wore a mask that was just a sheer rhinestone mesh. On the Chicago-Istanbul leg, at least half of the passengers had their noses out, or pulled them down to rub at their face, or took them off when the seat belt sign went off. I tried to eat/drink only when everyone around me was actually masked up. The airline promoted social distancing, but airport angst seemed to overpower it; people crowded up as close as ever to board and deplane.
The real trial came after I arrived here, though. Passport control and customs? No problem. Trying to get my checked luggage? Actual nightmare. Plenty of it was my fault, disoriented and unsure of whether or not the bag had been transferred to Alanya or if I needed to pick it up here, but every person I asked had a different answer. I think I talked to every customer service official in the airport. I was sent up stairs, down those stairs, back up those stairs, down the hall, out the doors, back in the doors (not possible), up a level, down a level, (repeat x3), to the airline desk, to the airport desk, to the airline desk, to the airport desk, ad nauseam. Literally, I was nauseated! And I’ll admit I did some crying an hour or two into my wild goose chase. Finally, a helpful Turkish Airlines official led me through an employee-only hallway to get my bag and exit through customs. During all of this, I had my cabin luggage: two backpacks weighing about 40 lbs combined, which I had to carry for all those miles I walked across the airport. I have bruises on my shoulders and a blister or two.
My father joked that me coming here is the first time a Hanna has migrated to Turkey since 1492, and when the plane touched down, I certainly felt emotional. Now I’m wondering if Turkey might actually have been glad to finally be rid of Hannas and tried its best to regurgitate this latest arrival. We’ll work it out. (As I was schlepping around the airport, I planned to title this email, “Turkey: 1, Netta: 0,” but I’m trying to have a growth mindset.)
“Kaplan” is a somewhat common surname in Turkey, meaning “tiger.” Half a dozen people I talked on my luggage travail asked if my father or grandfather was Turkish, or if I knew what it meant. They seemed very excited by it! I’m trying to figure out how to validate their excitement when hearing it for the nth time. Sometimes I tell them that it’s a common Jewish name with a different meaning. Sometimes I’m like, yes, how funny, many people have told me this! Sometimes, I’m like, please give me back my passport.
It was a great relief to get into this hotel room. You know it’s nice because I paid for it in euros, not lira. It’s very white and modern with colored LED lights that I cannot figure out how to control. It’s tiny—in order to walk around, the bed is partially elevated like a hospital bed—but it has a nice shower which I immediately took advantage of. There are no windows and my sense of time is enormously skewed. I am warm and comfortable in this bed, though, and my nerves have been oddly calm throughout it all. I expected to get terribly anxious, but the anxiety somehow never showed up. I still half expect it to catch up with me, but maybe this is just Netta-on-Fulbright: can’t read airport signage, cool as a cucumber.
Sincerely, Netta 🐯