So I'm in Istanbul. Yup.
The flights over were, as is
not usual for us, eventful, thanks to an elaborate surprise.
This
summer, I'm interning at a software company in Bermuda. Because I was
doing a project with P2C, my summer was already six weeks shorter, so
when I applied for the internship my parents and I agreed that asking
about an extra two weeks off during said internship would be shooting
myself in the foot. However, after being accepted and while finalizing
things, the company asked if I wanted to take any vacation time. I
decided to take the opportunity, and my mom decided that, as my dad was
disappointed that my brother Jordan and I weren't coming, surprising him
with this would be a great Father's Day gift. The initial plan was
that we'd give him a card on Father's Day telling him that I was coming,
but that was far too tame. The whole thing quickly spiralled into an
elaborate ruse to get all the way to London (the first stop on our
journey to Istanbul) without him knowing that I was coming along. After
several revisions and ideas, the final plan was as described below.
First,
my luggage. That was packed up and secretly picked up by my
grandparents while we were out of the house (having just gotten home
from Montreal it was easy to hide my packing). Then, on Sunday when we
left, I drove them to the airport. I brought my camera along, the
excuse being that I was going to go to Cooper's Island to get some shots
in the light of the setting sun as it's near the airport, which is not
near our house. I dropped them off at the terminal, said my farewells
(the clincher being when my dad hugged me goodbye and said "I wish you
were coming with us"), and departed to get my pictures.
My
grandparents were waiting about two minutes away from the airport with
my luggage. I rendezvoused with them and waited for my mom to text me
to confirm that they were through security and in the British Airways
executive lounge (my dad flies a lot...). This was my cue to return,
check in, get through security, and go to a predetermined corner in the
departures lounge that is not visible from anywhere my dad would be
going. After this, it would be relatively simple to board well after my
dad, and, as he was sitting in the front of the plane, I'd just slip
through on the opposite aisle to the back of the plane (we were careful
to get him a window seat up front).
But then things
started to go wrong. While in the airport, my dad started to push back
on the idea of him sitting up front with Charlotte...he loves to give
away his first class tickets to us and just sit in the back. If he was
in the back, we did have a back-up plan, but we'd have preferred not to
use it. Fortunately this was resolved. Then, the gate counter was
changed to a spot we had not expected...in plain view of where my hidden
corner was. As he got to the counter I could see him clearly...I was
cowering in my corner hoping that he wouldn't look my way. My family,
with him, did manage to keep him looking at them (specifically away from
me), and after a few tense, heart-pounding minutes, the danger had
passed. The "last" step in the surprise was to get through business
class and to my seat without him seeing. I hoisted my camera bag on my
shoulder and after causing a brief delay with the flight attendant (thus
clearing the aisle ahead of me) I was able to briskly walk through the
cabin and get to my seat safe and sound. At this point we were
successful; we just wanted to get me on the plane without him knowing.
Being able to pick and chose when to reveal myself was just icing on the
cake.
When we got to London, all I was supposed to do
was walk out, catch up with them before immigration, tap him on the
shoulder, and ask if he had my passport. I was way behind the rest of
the family on the plane, so that wasn't going to be a problem. Until I
walked out of the tunnel, rounded the corner and saw my family gathered
by the restrooms. Way too early for the surprise. Luckily, there was
an airport cart and I was able to duck behind it while I waited for them
to start moving (and get weird looks from the guy sitting in said
cart). Finally they started walking, and I started to move to catch up
with them, carefully dodging the glances my dad gave back towards my
family who was slightly tailing him. As we moved around another corner I
was able to catch up, reach forward, and tap his shoulder. The look on
his face was
priceless! He was standing in the middle of my
laughing family, completely confused and shocked. I tried to film it
but alas, the iPhone slipped down in my shirt pocket and nothing was
visible, but one can hear my dad's confusion. "Holy smokes! What is
going on?? Good grief! You scared the life out of me!" We spent a
while afterwards explaining to him how this all came about.
The
only sad thing about this story is that I think it will be a while
before I ever get a chance to pull off a ruse as elaborate as this.
On
to the first day in Istanbul. Most of the day was spent trying to
figure out transit arrangements and acquiring transit cards...the latter
of which never actually happened due to credit card issues.
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| A thrilling day in Istanbul |
After
much time spent on this, we eventually decided to modify our plans for
the day and spend our time walking down a touristic street with many
local attractions and other such...stuff. As it is late and most of
this is self-explanatory through the images...I'll let them speak for
themselves.
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| Taksim Square |
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| Monument in the square |
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| Eastern Orthodox church |
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| Making tradition Turkish food, similar to crepes |
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| Us in the same restaurant as the above image. |
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A Roman Catholic church
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And thus was day 1. We saw the protests starting up as we were heading home, but that's normal enough.
