At this point, I have no real stories of great interest to share with you all, so instead, I will offer up a few of my musings thus far:
Firstly, Airports are strange, bizarre, and confusing centers of human convergence. I am far from an expert in human movements patterns, but I was thoroughly amazed at the large number of Canadians boarding my flight from Charlotte, NC to Munich, Germany. True, Canadians have to fly places too, but I would think they would not be congregating en masse for a flight from Charlotte to Germany. Additionally, I was surprised yet again to find a sizable hoard of Quebecois chattering away, ready to board my flight from Munich to Istanbul – is Canada on vacation this month or something? I would say that I must have missed some memo, but the fact is, that even if there were any memo issued, I would never have received it, as I am not Canadian.
These very Quebecois have, in fact, become the highlight of my trip thus far. It took me a solid half hour to figure out that they were even speaking in French, and I can only say that nothing makes your degree in French seem less valuable than listening to a gaggle of teenagers, recently escaped from Montreal high schools, chatter away in native French that takes me a whole half hour to determine whether or not it is, in fact, a language that I will, in a few months, have a degree in. I have, however, comforted myself my new mantra: “’C’est OK, ce n’est pas vraiment français, c’est québecois……. C’est OK, ce n’est pas vraiment français, c’est québecois” (‘It’s ok, it’s not French, it’s Quebecois’ – Translation provided for those of you who do not share my borderline compulsive obsession with languages).
My final musing addresses only the most crucial of topics: food - airline food to be more specific. Writing this, I am about an hour or so in to my final flight from Munich to Istanbul, and I was just served my in flight lunch. When it was placed before me, I did a double take. Yes, my “lunch” was labeled “Thai Red Curry.” Let me just say that I have been to Thailand, and I have had Thai Red Curry in Thailand. I was pretty much afraid of what was sitting before me in a little pre-packaged container of dubious origin (and by dubious origin, I mean that it has not even come close to seeing any part of the Asian continent, much less Thailand). I actually took a picture of it just to commemorate the moment that I got Thai food on a flight from Germany to Turkey. 15 minutes later, I can say that my worst fears were confirmed – American based airlines are quite possibly the biggest rip-off in the universe. They hardly offer in flight food, and for those of you who have never flown a foreign airline, let me tell you, IGNORANCE IS BLISS because my Thai red curry was actually good. Yes, friends, I am still trying to wrap my head around it, but it was indeed quite good – a fact that was only slightly overshadowed by the accompanying Toblerone.
As I have bombarded you with a relentless stream of random banter, I will concluded the first of my (hopefully numerous if I can keep myself working on this diligently) posts by sending you all my fondest regards and letting you know that I can hardly wait to get my shiny new Turkish entry stamp in my passport. I am now going to go invest some quality time into my relationship with Lonely Plant and brush up on my Turkish street smarts before I land and attempt to navigate my way around Istanbul (Not Constantinople).
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