A Night at the Istanbul Airport

Separation

I notice at some point while we are walking, and it seems like we are heading out, that the Mother is holding a fabric bag that is almost touching the ground. It looks extremely heavy, like her son's. Except it looks worse, because it is not a backpack, it is a bag that she is holding with both her hands. Her legs bumping into it with every step she takes.

I walk up to her and offer to take it. She is afterall an old lady. The look on her face when I ask brings me peace. She seems so happy handing me the bag. And just when she lets go, I understand why. The bag is just too heavy. I am not a strong person. I wish I was, and I do some sports to change that. But I am not yet. I hold the bag with both my hands and walk a little bit faster. I make sure she cannot see the look on my face as long as I am holding it.

When the officers escort us out and we are about to go separate places, I give the bag back and she keeps thanking me. "What a nice young lady." she tells me.

I leave their side and stay with Hussein and Omar. All three of us go to the ticketing office. While Omar pays for a new ticket for the next day, Hussein takes his time discussing with the tickets office's employee that we should not be paying for ours and that is their fault we missed our flight.

I know how these things end. You are simply never right. You are never compensated. I hated airlines. A couple of months earlier, I was coming to Istanbul and had booked a flight at 5:00am. I left my house to go to the airport at around 2:00am. At the check-in, it turned out that mine and my cousin's names are not there. It turned out that the airline had cancelled our tickets without giving us any kind of notice. No e-mail. No call. Nothing. When I tried to send e-mails, submit the form on the website, as well as talk to an employee at the airline that I knew very well, nothing happened. Literally nothing. No answer, no care, nothing. Airlines suck.

But Hussein insists. He keeps talking to them for a long while. What seems like a long while for a person so tired, anyway. The ticketing office tells them that it is the airport's fault that they did not announce it. So Hussein goes back and forth between the two windows. And, you guessed it, ultimately pays for a new ticket for the following day.

Angry at them, Hussein talks a little bit with Omar and asks me to come with him.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"To pick up our luggage back. It should be here."

Hussein and I go down some electric stairs to a new hall. The whole airport is completely empty.

We walk up to a woman employee who is standing by a high desk. Hussein greets her and gives her our luggage receipt. She tells us that it will be a while before we can have them. I am not sure where Hussein learnt that we need to do that. Obviously the officer explained something like that and I was too tired to listen.

The time was around 4:00am now.

There is a closed coffee shop in front of the hall where we should pick up the luggage. Hussein asks me to go sit there as he goes to do something. I honestly do not know what the thing is. I decide to trust Hussein with this process, as I did the whole night.

I sit and turn on my phone. I start to look for nearby hotels. We do not want to go back to the downtown of Istanbul where we usually go. We want to stay near, arrive at a hotel fast, have a little bit of sleep, and chill the next day until our flight at 9:00pm.

I start checking out some hotels. Too far. Too expensive. Fully booked...

Then I find something that looks very suitable. A 10 minutes ride away. I call them to make sure we can check-in sometime soon and that they do have rooms, and they say that they do.

I put my head on the table for a while. At around 4:40am, Hussein comes back, and our luggage is out.

We take the luggage and go up the stairs one more time, to finally leave.

I notice Hussein looking left and right.

"What is it?" I ask him.

"Omar. I cannot find him."

I am not sure why he needs to.

"Shit."

"What, Hussein?"

"Omar has friends in Taksim. He offered us to go there with him. He said we can stay there and that that way we won't have to pay for a hotel and we would have fun together. It's nice of him. But I told him I do not feel comfortable doing that. So he suggested that we book the same hotel and spend the day tomorrow since we are all stuck in the same place."

"Did you agree to meet somewhere specific?"

"No."

"Did you not take his phone number?"

"No."

"What is his last name?" I thought we could search for his Instagram account or something.

"I don't know."

"So that is it?"

Hussein looks around for a while. But he knows that there is no way he will find him in this huge place.

He shakes his head disappointed. He thought he made a friend. And he did. For a night, at least.

"There is no way we are meeting these people again." I state the obvious. The obvious, but not trivial.

"This was our first and last encounter with them." I continue.

Hussein realizes it.

"I wish them well." I say.

"Yeah." Hussein answers.

"Me too."