Incredible Beauty

Rainbow Time

I was outside my hostel in Istanbul by 7am waiting for the bus to come and take me to the airport. The hand written ticket I had said that the bus was coming at 7:30 but all of the signs at the various travel agencies said 7:20 and they said to be waiting 15 minutes early. I didn’t want anyone to be able to blame me for not being on the street as they drove by and left me stranded in Istanbul. Shortly after standing on the corner a bus came barreling down the street unfortunately it wasn’t my bus, it was going to the other airport in town. My bus finally came at 7:40 and then drove around and picked up some more people, some of whom were waiting outside their hotels/hostels while others had to be stirred from their rooms to get them outside. Luckily I had planned for there to be delays and I was at the airport in plenty of time.

My flight was delayed an hour but other than that there weren’t any complications. Once in London I got some British Pounds (their currency) and bought a bus ticket to London. As usual I used a low cost airline to get to London and they don’t actually take you to London but a suburb outside of London. I headed toward the bus and checked my pockets as I often do to make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be. I always put my wallet in my front right pocket along with my cell phone and MP3 player. In my front left pocket I carry my camera, notebook, pen and lip balm (Microsoft World doesn’t like the word “chapstick”. What is the appropriate word for what a man uses to keep his lips from drying out?). I noticed that my wallet was missing and started to panic. Had I been pick pocketed in the airport? Someone finally got my wallet! How could I let this happen? Then the girl who sold me my bus ticket came hurrying over with my wallet in her hand, I had left it at the counter.

By the time I made it to my hostel and got checked in it was starting to get dark outside and I had only eaten a banana all day and decided to head to the bar attached to the hostel to grab something to eat. I met some Canadian wildfire fighters and joined them for what turned out to be a night of ridiculousness. When you haven’t eaten all day it only takes a few drinks to do the job.

Thursday I woke up at 9:45am in time to get my free hostel breakfast by 10:00am. The breakfast was only cereal and bread but it was free and held me over until lunch. The first full day in London I knocked out a bunch of tourist attractions. I went to London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Big Ben and the Parliament building. I called my Dad from one of those classic red phone booths and people were taking pictures of the booth while I was in it. While walking around it started to rain and there was a really beautiful rainbow. For dinner I went to an Asian restaurant overlooking the tower bridge at night with all of its lights on and it too was incredibly beautiful.

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