Flying, this time around. The Perks and the Dark Side.

I just had the most tedious experience in my flying history. You could make the case that this is the furthest away I've flown from Costa Rica and that exhaustion was expected, but not to this level. I wasn't counting on Iberia's flight to depart 6 hours later from Costa Rica and to be seated next to a disgusting fat man who not only invaded my personal space and threatened my sanity by snoring and grunting really loud, but also knocked part of my food out of the tray table (beer included) and didn't even attempt to apologize. Good times, good goddamn ten hours.

Anyway, life made a decent attempt to make up for my peril with Iberia, and the rest of the transit either flowed smoothly or people were extra willing to help me. I always thought Madrid was such a mean place. Now I see that it all comes down to that stupid company (which I still have to use since I have thousands of miles with them.)

Still not the point. I wanted to document the landing/departure from Istanbul as I couldn't take any pictures. I was blown away by the beauty of the trip. I landed during the early morning, and the darkness of the Black Sea slowly yielded to the bleak yellow dawn and the lights of Istanbul. The airport was not far from the shore, and for a moment, I had the impression we were going to land in water. Taking off in the next flight for Izmir was even more magical. Full daylight and a window seat allowed me to turn around and see how we left the Black Sea and a float of ships of all shorts behind. As we were leaving Istanbul behind, counting mosques became impossible. One here, one there, another one there and there. The tall needles of the sites of worship outnumbered any other distictive form of architecture. The silver domes shone with the sunrays. Istambul kept expanding beyond reach, and the pain in my neck as I was almost twisting it against physics did not stop me from watching until the concrete faded away in a succession of hills of dry yellow grass and contrasting strong green trees. The plane kept gaining altitude. All around I could see the cracks on the cloud roof and several halos of light working as spotlights for the islands in the Black Sea, later for a mosque in the middle of the slums; much later, halos hit the wing of the plane, and then we were up there in the white.
I expected no more than a flat white mattress of velvety clouds, but the Turkish sky gave me yet another surprise. It was another spectacle up there. The clouds covered it all, but their arbitrarious shapes created the most unthinkable landscapes. I painted some parts in green in my head, some others in blue, added a few wild horses and my imagination went wild. The landmark I liked the most was a perfectly shaped scorpion tail coming out of the white puffy floor.  Did I mention that good 30 minutes of the flight were turbulences? Fun ride, fun ride (I mean it, rollercoaster like.)
The descent took the plane along the cost of what I guessed was the Aegean Sea. For a while, the breaks in another cloudly sky let the sunlight hit entire faces of mountains, and small, scattered villages along the coast preceded one large aglommeration of buildings. And only then, I was in Izmir.

None of the pictures are my property. I took them from google in an attempt of illustrating what I saw.

Oh, by the way, the food in Turkish Airlines is amazing. Salmon and Chicken on Eggplant for dinner? A cheese and fresh vegetables sandwich with yogurt for a one hour flight? Why don't they fly to Costa Rica???