Plovd-Istan-Batumi

 The day finally arrived.

I took a taxi to Автогара Юг (Avtogara Yug), the bus terminal in Plovdiv, where I boarded a bus headed for Istanbul.  I got to see some of the surrounding area that I'd had no way to see before (since my train arrived pretty late and I didn't have a car to get outside the city).  The bus also provided snacks, kinda like a plane, with these meme-worthy muffins and a way of packaging water I'd definitely never seen before.

We went through the Bulgarian border with a passport control stop just before entering Turkey, for which there was another border stop.  I found it only a little strange that there'd be two separate stops, since there was no way in or out between them - all traffic going through one also went through the other except maybe for staff of the border crossings.

The Turkish countryside looked not unlike the area near Plovdiv, which of course makes sense given it was a couple hours' drive at most.  The Sea of Marmara on the southern edge of Turkey, which I didn't know was a thing specifically, provided a rather lovely backdrop to this town, and I was struck by how common mosques are in Turkey.  Vaguely reminiscent of churches in the US, though slightly more distinctive.  I also had no idea sunflowers were such a major crop near Istanbul.  Seriously.

 The bus arrived in Esenler Otogar, a pretty large and busy bus terminal on the northwestern side of Istanbul.  The walk to the hotel was short but rather challenging with my giant suitcase, carry-on, and laptop bag, so I didn't get any pictures until actually reaching my room.  It was an uneventful, unremarkable night, other than the calls to prayer happening over giant PA system throughout the city (there are speakers on those mosque towers, replacing the human criers who traditionally would do the call to prayer).  In the morning, I went to the hotel's somewhat unfamiliar breakfast spread and set out.

Now, here's where everything kinda started falling apart.

For background, I'm on a quest to see how far around the world I can get without flying, starting in the US and heading east.  While in Plovdiv, I'd tried to book my bus ticket between Istanbul and Batumi, Georgia.  The booking went through, the charge was finalized...and my ticket never came.  I tried to call them, but their phone number bounced.  I emailed them to ask about it, and the charge was reversed with no further explanation or contact of any kind.  So I thought, fine, I'll just go in on the day and arrange it in person.

Evidently that was the wrong choice.  Whether it's due to being a weekend, or because I just underestimated how busy a route this is, the buses operated by two separate bus lines, both Saturday and Sunday, were totally full.  Rather than pushing until I found a day with an available seat, I decided to just dump the money into a flight.  It'd be expensive (in the realm of $550 including a checked bag) but it'd get me to Batumi and let me start on the process of getting back to work earlier, as well as not spending two days in Istanbul where I'd have to put in money for hotels and food all day.  Being in a somewhat low financial state, I didn't have much to draw from for exploring the city, seeing the sights, etc.

So I've broken the no flying 'rule' (more like guideline), and I still haven't decided if this means the whole quest is over or if I'll take it as a circumstantial disruption and know that the route still exists, I just wasn't able to get it due to time and money constraints. 

 I got a taxi to the airport.  I was a little surprised to see evergreens in Turkey, just because I tend to think of it as arid and warm enough to not really have a winter that'd require coniferous vegetation.  Maybe that just speaks to me as a Coloradoan not "respecting" other climates and their snow.  I failed to get a picture of the large mosque just outside the airport, but did get a picture of an amusing cafe inside.  For those who aren't perpetually online, that pose and outfit are part of a meme of a guy sprinkling...something.  Sometimes it's fairy dust, sometimes it's words; standard of the Internet, it's been adopted for a lot of different purposes.  I didn't learn until finding the link for the meme explanation that the person in question is actually a Turkish chef.

The airport, like many I've seen, is part transportation terminal and part shopping mall, with Unifree, the shop on the left there, being apparently profitable enough to have numerous locations within the airport.  I didn't shop around due to a strong desire to not be lugging even more crap everywhere with me, but I did have dinner at Pasa Doner (seen on the right).  Some kind of kebab meat rolled into a wrap.  Pretty tasty.  I'm not sure where these packages got their name, but I saw something similar on a Doordash-esque menu in Plovdiv so I assume it's a more widespread brand that inexplicably doesn't exist in the state that bears its name.  Would guess that it's not referring to the US state at all, really, but I'm too lazy to find answers.

Turkish Airways, like many airlines outside the US, shames US airlines with their included offerings, even on a little one-hour flight without generally being any more expensive.  Obviously there are a lot of factors that go into that, but it's still somewhat noteworthy to me.  All our race-to-the-bottom airlines offering five peanuts and a ginger ale, and in other countries (including China, Japan, Vietnam, and Turkey at least) there's basically a full meal available.  Oh well.

After the passport stop in Batumi (the agent skipping page 10 for some reason despite it being empty), I made the classic Georgian tourist mistake of getting a taxi right outside the airport.  Honestly I am embarrassed as hell because every site I've gone to has warned about this.  And with good reason.  They speak quickly with limited English, they sort pass you around a bit from driver to driver, and they only take cash so you don't necessarily know how much the value is yet.  Every site I've visited since last night looking for any kind of traveler advice for Georgia says not to take airport taxis.  Now I have 130 reasons to agree, since that was the cost (in Georgian Lari) of the 15-ish minute taxi ride...the equivalent of about $45.

The mess didn't end there, however.  My AirBnB host's check-in process for this place was basically "sneak in the apartment building door when someone else comes out, wait for someone to use the elevator to get up to the right floor, and my friend will give you the key."  The actual check-in instructions, however, only say "my friend will give you the key," so the rest is...yeah.  For several reasons, this didn't work out at 10pm when I got there, so I wound up getting a hotel for the night.  Had a nice view at least.  The beach also has a whole fairgrounds thing going on, and last night even fireworks (as well as loud music pretty late into the night, like 2-3am late).  So, not a great restful night.  

I finally got in contact with the host at 1am or so, got better instructions and the friend's phone number, and today around 12:15 pm, got into the actual apartment.  It's not a bad place, honestly, and like many places in high-rise-riddled Batumi, has a pretty great view of the Black Sea.  Best part is, the apartment faces west (as it'd need to to overlook the Black Sea, of course) so I'll have some great sunsets right from my patio.

My research into Batumi showed that it occasionally hits the low 80s, but hovers in the mid-high 70s most of the time, and I thought this would mean I'd be freer to explore and wander than I was in Plovdiv's 83-95 degree weather.  What I didn't take into account was how 87 degrees with 25% humidity can actually be just as unpleasant as 77 degrees with 92% humidity.  It's another day that I'm wishing I'd waited until fall to start this journey, rather than going through summer.  Someday in the near-ish future, I'll be free to make my destination choices based more on climate; this quest rather locked me into a route, so I've just been kind of enduring the climate wherever it is.

I got back from my first little shopping trip, more of an exploratory expedition than an actual stock-up, a little while ago and had PB&J, chips, coke, and a candy bar for whatever meal it qualifies as.  Another perk of this apartment in particular is that there's a small-mid grocery store on the ground floor, meaning I barely have to go outside at all to access at least the basics.  I'm probably going out again later to a larger shop for more actual food, or at least to round out the remaining needs of the apartment (Kleenex, a couple cooking utensils, a trash bin for the bathroom).  But I'm spending a fair bit of time today just kind of crashed out, recovering from the last couple days' stress and frustrations.

It ain't all sunshine and rainbows out here.  But I have yet to truly regret this lifestyle I've chosen for a single minute.