Microcation is such an obnoxious word

Part 1: In Denial

I want to be clear that I had not planned this.

I’d read about it. Extreme travel. Get up early, travel to someplace exotic, have an amazing meal and then back home again. A Gen-Z trend that started in the UK, where budget airlines had made it cheaper to fly to Milan for lunch than to take a train to Leeds. TikTok picked up on the trend and flung it towards the US. CNN calls them extreme day trips. VML introduces the term micro-adventure. Pop-Sugar doubles down with microcations.

Fodor’s settles the nomenclature debate with late capitalism’s worst travel trend.

I wasn’t tempted to try this for myself. The TikTok version appears to involve racing from landmark to landmark to see how many identifiable selfies you can take. At best, it’s an expensive overnight: depart at the crack of dawn to arrive in an exciting place in time for cocktails before an elegant meal with a beautiful view, followed by a quiet night in an expensive hotel and an exotic and delicious breakfast before heading back to the airport.

The truth is: I am not that kind of person. Not the kind of person who gets up early. Not the kind of person who can afford to throw money at a problem. Not the kind of person who is excited to spend just a few hours in a new place. I once spent four weeks on a tiny Icelandic island and still, was frustrated that I hadn’t seen every inch of it. Not the kind of high-end traveller who wines and dines. I mostly stay at hostels. My meals plans often involve three nights of instant noodles to justify an evening at a high-end restaurant. I never travel anywhere without three days of preparation, a laminated checklist, and at least one major panic that I have missed something important.

I read these accounts of extreme day trips with the sort of wide-eyed interest that I watch Formula 1: exciting to watch, not the way I would ever want to drive a car.

And yet, here I was.

The truth is: The only reason I was getting up at 5am to go to Istanbul was because Google Flights had opinions about my budget.  The cheapest route from Tallinn to El Paso was flying Turkish Airlines with an overnight layover in Istanbul. Istanbul was willing to have me for eighteen hours, which was more than I had expected from a city that I had not told I was coming. Bonus: the airline would pay for an overnight at a four-star hotel if I agreed. This felt less like travel and more like being bribed by a country.

Of course, I said yes.

Now here I am, a middle-aged woman booked on a Turkish Airlines flight at an hour that should not technically exist, about to spend eighteen hours in Istanbul through no coherent act of planning.

Paldiski is -15°C/5°F at five am. I am wearing four layers of clothes and a heavy coat.

Only once I am safely smashed into my window seat, staring at the moving map on the headrest of the seat in front of me, sipping overboiled coffee, do I realise that technically, eighteen hours in Istanbul is exactly the kind of microcation that TikTok is all excited about. Up at five am, jump onto a plane, arrive in Istanbul to have a great dinner, sleep in a nice hotel, enjoy a Turkish breakfast and be back at the airport by lunchtime.

I could experience Istanbul as a quiet layover with a free hotel, which in itself is no small thing. Or I could treat it as an extreme adventure: one night in Istanbul. An amazing meal. A story to tell.

My tendency to say “Yes, OK, let’s do this” is either my best trait or my worst, depending on whether you are the one reading about this later or the one actually living through the repercussions.

A cabin crew member offers me an aluminium sealed tray as an early lunch. It’s one of my favourite meals: Turkish meatballs with rice and eggplant.

It seems like a sign. Yes, OK, let’s do this.

Part Two: In Transit

Istanbul is 15°C/59°F at 3:45pm. I might die of heat exhaustion. I find the toilets and strip two layers of clothing off, shoving them into my bag and hoping that I don’t look like a drug smuggler. I get into the first line I see for immigration. A man looks me up and down dubiously. “Where are you going?”

“The Cettia Hotel Istanbul,” I say, hoping he’ll be impressed.

He’s not. “Are you a mariner?”

I chew my lip. Breaking into “yo no soy marinero, soy capitan!” from La Bamba seems inappropriate. I carefully shake my head no.

“This is the Seaman’s Gate,” he says. I take a moment to reparse this before reacting. He sighs and tells me to carry on to the next set of gates.

The line is a lot longer if you are not a mariner. Soon, a dark-eyed woman who also looks like she has been up since 5am stamps my passport and welcomes me to Istanbul.

I’m in.

I don’t actually have a plan. I need to get to my hotel, the beautiful four-star Cettia Hotel Istanbul that Turkish Airlines booked for me. Google assures me that it is easy to get to: 40 minutes travel on Istanbul’s Metro to the Şişli district on Istanbul’s European side. I just need to find the metro station, about ten minutes walk from the airport, and then take the M11 to the M2, get off at Şişli and walk another ten minutes to my hotel. OK, that’s a plan.

A traveller’s website says that to use public transport, I need an Istanbulkart card. It’s easy to get the transport card, it promises, I just need to head underground to the bus station beneath the airport and purchase one from the kiosk there. Be careful of scammers who will try to sell you overpriced tickets. Only use the kiosk. “You can’t miss it,” writes the author.

I miss it. I roam around the bus station while buses breathe exhaust fumes at me, trying to find someone who might understand enough English to know what I am talking about. Finally, I approach a young man selling guided tours of Istanbul who bright smiles slips off of his face as he points vaguely further along. I keep walking to the end of the pavement, where all that is left is the exit where the buses belch their way up a ramp and into the outside world.

Here, on the edge of nowhere, is a yellow kiosk that apparently sells TourIstanbul cards. Except that when I attempt to use it, there is an error message in red letters in Turkish. I try again. I look around, in case some helpful person wants to translate, and then stop, remembering the warning about scammers. The comments were full of people complaining about the confusing kiosks and fast-talking Turkish men who offer to help and then charge extravagant amounts to their credit cards.

I don’t want to look like I need help.

I stomp back upstairs to the arrivals hall. I have been in Istanbul for almost an hour and I have not yet managed to leave the airport. This is crazy. There is no way in hell that there’s a transport station at the airport without any means of buying a ticket. I give up on bullshit Internet traveller advice and follow the signs to the Metro. Sure enough, there’s another yellow kiosk. I try to buy an Istanbulkart. I fail.

Everyone else is queued to use blue kiosks. I shift allegiances. The blue kiosks offer me a Türkiyekart for sixty Turkish lira and then top it up for travel. I have no idea what a Türkiyekart is or what sixty lira are worth in real money, let alone what is a reasonable amount to put on a transport card. A timer counts down, resets the transaction, asks me to start over. Blindly trusting my luck, I add a hundred lira to the amount and take my card. It works! I’m through the turnstile and walking through an interminable empty terminal. At the bottom, there are two sets of tracks. I check my phone, but this far underground, I have no connectivity. I see a sign for M2, which I’m supposed to take the M11 to get to. Nothing says M11.  A train pulls in. A lot of people enter the train. There are two options now: get on the train or go back upstairs and work out where I am going.

I get on the train.

I’m still wearing at least 1.5 layers too many. Either I’m going to magically end up in the right place or I’m going to be lost, sweltering, in the Turkish metro system forever, begging for leftover kebab.

Part Three: In the Crosshairs

I am 80% sure that I’m heading into town, not away from it. I’m 20% into my extreme adventure and already 100% done with it. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel this crazy pressure to get the party started.

At the last stop, there are signs to the M2. I follow the little [2] signs until they take me above ground. I blink against the sunlight, my feet, encased in snow boots, already starting to ache. There is no trace of the M2. There is, in fact, nothing.

Google Maps insists that everything is fine. I follow it through the city streets, past traffic and jackhammers and a number of strikingly beautiful cats. In the distance, I spot another Metro station, inexplicably with the same name as the one I just left. I go down. There are signs for the M2 and, bafflingly, to the M11 going to the airport, as if the city itself is suggesting I reconsider my choices.

At the turnstile, I tap my transport card. Red light. Alarm. A sound designed to alert the entire station that I am not to be trusted. I step aside and watch the other commuters, who glide through using their phones like competent adults. I stand near an exit and attempt to download the Istanbul transport app. It is not available for my country. This seems rather unfair as I am, at this moment, in theirs.

I try the Türkiyekart again. The alarm, patient and certain, answers with a blare.

Near the exit is a yellow kiosk, promising that this time, honestly, I will enjoy the perfect Istanbulkart experience. I give it one last chance, quickly making progress, except that there’s this same five-second timer which resets the whole process if you don’t react quickly enough.

After two attempts, I manage to load 300 lira onto an Istanbulkart, which I hope will work better than a Türkiyekart.

Two guys approach the yellow kiosk, one of them saying, “Yes, but what do I need to do?”  The other sounds impatient, “Just hold on, just hold on a second.” He comes up behind me and huffs a bit at me for being in the way. They seem stressed. The kiosk spits out my card and I turn to leave when the second guy sighs. “Ugh, you haven’t activated your card.”

I look at the card. He reaches past me to tap the screen. “See? You need to activate it before you can use it.” He pops through the Turkish menu and takes my Istanbulkart, holding it up to the machine to read. “There,” he says. “Now you just need to tap your card to activate it.” He points at the credit card still in my other hand.

“What?” I’m confused. The five-second timer ends. The machine resets. The guy groans in impatience.

“You missed it. Look. It’s easy.” He holds the Istanbulkart against the reader again and hops through the menus. “Now, use your credit card to activate.”

The five-second timer is counting down. He points to the contactless card reader. “Activate!”

I feel slow and old and stupid.  And yet… I can’t see why I need to tap my credit card again.

I snatch my Istanbulkart out of his hand. “No.”

His face is bewildered. He’s just trying to help. “You need to activate!”

“You go. You guys go ahead,” I say, not liking the pressure of being rushed. I walk away before he can argue. I need a moment. I take a couple of deep breaths and get myself organised: credit card back in my wallet, wallet back in my pocket, Istanbulkart in my hand. I go to the turnstile and show it my new card. It glows green with a soft, approving click.

There was no activation.

The interaction replays in my head. I still don’t understand what the scam was. Load the card and swap it? The other guy, was he an accomplice? Or another tourist, like me, accepting the help of a stranger. I glance back at the machine. There’s no one there.

The train carries me two stops to what I hope is Şişli. The tinned voice says a string of syllables, starting with M. It sounds absolutely nothing like Şişli. I get off anyway, hot and sweaty and sick of everything. And somehow, yes, there’s a sign, Şişli—Mecidiyeköy, with arrows pointing at the six exits, numbered one through six. Or specifically, [1] through [6].

Only now do I realise that following the [2] earlier had nothing to do with finding the M2. It was simply a very efficient way of getting lost above ground and then re-entering the system from an entirely different entrance.

Still. I have arrived.

I come up to street level to see the Trump Towers, which isn’t quite the Turkish welcome I was hoping for. But Google Maps is back in charge: now all I have left is to cross a major intersection and walk ten minutes to my hotel. My feet are killing me. My shoulder aches under the weight of my overnight bag. I pass coffee shops and bakeries and small restaurants offering cheap plates of grilled meat with rice and probably eggplant. Old men sit alone at outside tables, eating with quiet focus.

Somewhere in the distance, a single voice rises and falls: melodic, haunting. A call to prayer from an unseen mosque. I could not be anywhere but Türkiye.

I inhale deeply and keep going.

Part Four: In Someone Else’s Life

The sliding glass doors of the Hotel Cettia whoosh open as if they’ve been waiting all day for someone like me, which is unfortunate, because I’m pretty sure that I am not the sort of person they were hoping for. Inside is an elegant bar, all glass and polish, as if fingerprints simply don’t occur here. A sign gestures discreetly towards reception.

It is 7pm. I have spent over three hours trying to navigate this city. If you only have one day in a city, perhaps you should not treat time as if it is abundant. Perhaps you should not spend three hours saving the cost of a taxi. An extreme traveller would already be deep into a plate of something grilled and marinated and possibly still sizzling. I, on the other hand, have arrived with the slightly haunted look of someone who has seen too many ticket machines.

In reception, an oversized cat sits on an oversized chair, staring at me. The kind of stare that says this place has rules and you’re already breaking them.

I remind myself that this is only a layover. I haven’t technically paid to be here, which feels like an important psychological loophole.

A beautiful red-haired woman looks up from behind the counter. Her clothes are perfect, kind of expensive that doesn’t wrinkle. She smiles like she’s been expecting me. Would I like a drink from the bar?

My entire body slumps in exhaustion. “Um, a glass of water?”

She gives me an odd look: anything I want, and I choose water? Should I quickly add “and a glass of prosecco, thank you”? Too late. She snaps a finger. A slightly disheveled young man dashes to the bar with my order. The cat looks away, bored.

I stand there, a sweating lump of travel chaos in my hoodie and snow boots. I cannot imagine a less first-class-service-deserving person. Maybe they are just worried that I might faint onto the pristine floor of reception.

If Red is judging me, she doesn’t let it show.  “While we wait, would you like to give me your passport so I can check you in?” She taps lightly on her computer. “Oh, I see we’ve upgraded you to a suite!”

My water arrives with a heavy whiskey glass filled with water. I gulp it down. “A suite?”

“Yes, on the top floor. I am sure you will enjoy it.” She prints out a form and asks me to sign it. There’s nowhere for my signature. “Where?”

“Wherever you like,” she says, laughing. No need for pesky lines.

I do not need to leave the room for anything, she tells me. There is a full restaurant menu in the room, I can just call down to her and she will send up whatever I desire.

What do I desire? I ask for another glass of water. She snaps. The dishevelled young man jumps to attention. I also very much desire food but …do I really want to sit in a hotel room eating room service?

“I’m wondering about going out for dinner,” I say, nervously. “Maybe something …Turkish?” As if this were an odd request.

She leans forward conspiratorially. “Turkish? Oh, I know just the place! It’s nearby. Local. Good Turkish food. No tourists.”

It sounds perfect. My feet ache. “How far to walk?”

“Walk?” Red shakes her head. “There’s nothing walking distance except fast food.” She says fast food in the tone of voice usually reserved for dog shit. I think longingly of the smoky grill places I passed on the way here.

“Oh, no,” I say, in an anything but that voice.

“But it is nearby. Have you ever had raki?”

I shake my head, no.

“It’s our milk,” she says. “You must try it. This is the perfect place. It is not far, in a taxi.

I am absolutely through with public transport. Taxis are a thing. I’m allowed to use them. “OK. How do I get a taxi to the restaurant?”

She laughs gaily, as if I’m the wittiest person she’s ever met. “I do that.” And then, as if she’s only just realized that I wasn’t joking. “I will organize everything; you don’t need to worry. What time would you like to go to dinner?”

I don’t know what I was thinking, other than I wanted to fit into the role she was creating for me. I wanted to be the kind of person whom one is happy to upgrade to a suite. “I just need 15 minutes to get changed,” I say.

Her eyes briefly drop to my travel outfit. I can’t shake the feeling that she thinks I need a lot more than fifteen minutes. But the smile is still on her face as she nods and shoos me to the elevator. “You need to use your room card to get access to the top floor,” she tells me.

I enter the elevator and make room for a middle-class woman carrying half a dozen high-end shopping bags. She presses a button and I mentally thank Red as I tap my room card before selecting the 12th floor. Shopping woman glances at the lit button and then looks me up and down. I sniff audibly when she gets out on the third. I could get used to this.

My door opens to a narrow corridor and then a living room and then a bedroom bigger than some apartments that I’ve lived in. The curtains are drawn. There is a deep tub and a shower on opposite ends of the bathroom. I regret that I don’t have enough time for either and quickly splash myself with water and rearrange my layers to something suitable for the warm Turkish night. I get out my make-up but there’s no time. I grab my hoodie and dash downstairs just in time.

Red isn’t there. Instead, there’s a serious-looking man with a 5 o’clock shadow who stares confusedly when I try to explain that a beautiful red-haired woman promised me dinner. What restaurant was I going to? I have no idea. Eventually he gives up with a heavy sigh and disappears into the back. The dishevelled young man comes out. He shows me a taxi app on his phone, saying “Taxi.”

I’m not sure what’s happening. Again. “Do you know where I’m going?”

 “You are going,” he says, nodding, happy to confirm.

Mr 5 o’clock shadow returns and corrects him in Turkish.

The young man blushes and says “Oh. Yes, of course I know.” He dashes away before I can ask any more questions.

Mr 5 o’clock rolls his eyes and calls out something in Turkish. A moment later, Red appears, her face quickly rearranging into a smile when she sees me. She pulls out her phone, showing me photographs: nicely laid tables, a plate of shrimp, a waiter smiling with a bottle of wine. “This is your restaurant.”

I keep scrolling until I finally find one with a lit sign with an abstract symbol and, underneath, Barboon.

Her job done, she turns to return to the back.

“Wait, but how do I get back? After dinner.”

She glances back at me like she can’t believe I’m a functioning adult. “The restaurant will call a taxi for you, of course.”

As she disappears, the cat wanders in, looks at me sitting in her chair and leaves again. Dishevelled returns to tell me that my taxi will be outside in a minute. Yes, the taxi knows where I am going.

Is this really how other people do this? And how much is it going to cost?

He turns his phone towards me again, which seems to show an estimate of 400 liras. “A little more, a little less,” he tells me and then glances at the app again. “Now go! Your taxi is here!”

Part Five: In Too Deep to Object

 I dash outside and climb into the back seat of a random taxi, hoping that it is mine. A grumpy man asks me where I am going.

“I have no idea.” I’ve already forgotten the name of the restaurant again. What am I doing? And how much is 400 liras?

The driver huffs and pulls out. We drive along a busy road, a blur of traffic and well-lit restaurants full of shiny happy people. He speeds up around a clover-leaf junction that deposits us onto a freeway going the opposite way. I consider that Red’s idea of “nearby” may not match mine.

The driver is racing in the slow lane, tapping at a console on his dash showing a menu scantily-clad pop stars. He chooses one, goes back, chooses the next. Finally, he selects one, an exotic-looking woman with permed hair playing a synth. She’s playing ABBA: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight). He turns up the volume, nodding his head to the disco and weaving through the traffic. We leave the freeway, drive uphill to crest the top with a beautiful view over city lights and water.

I have no idea where I am. He is singing along to the chorus. We barrel down again, around a series of hairpin curves. Suddenly the taxi stops in the middle of a narrow road. He turns off the music. I look around, lost. We are blocking traffic. He growls something at me, pointing at the meter. I spot the familiar white lit sign of Barboon; we have arrived. I’m struggling to see my money in the dark, backlit by a taxi behind us who honks more-or-less politely.  I hand over some money, rounding up from the amount on the meter. The sour look on his face tells me that I should have tipped. I still have a fifty-lira note still in my hand, but I can’t work out if that’s insulting or over-generous. I remember the blaring ABBA. The honking from behind is becoming rather more urgent. I shove the 50 liras in my pocket and get out, barely making it out of the street before he peels away at breakneck speed.

A portly gentleman smiles at me fondly, as if his favorite niece has just arrived. “I have a reservation, I think,” I tell him.

He laughs and waves me in, points up the stairs. At the top is a very fancy restaurant, all floor-to-ceiling windows and quiet confidence. Three waiters stand ready, dressed as they might at any moment be asked to attend a black-tie gala. The white-clothed tables are spaced generously, each with a small golden lamp in the center.

A ship drifts past the windows. The city lights sparkle obligingly in the background.

I am the only guest.

They escort me to a window seat, smiling broadly. The waves of the Bosphorus reflect the street lighting, but my attention is taken by the white sign on this side of the restaurant. Barboon. Now that I’m sitting, I see that the abstract sketch on the sign is actually a wide-mouthed fish. Barboon, it seems, is Turkish for “Red Mullet”. I’m at a seafood restaurant.

I usually think to mention that I’m allergic to seafood before agreeing to dinner plans. Somehow everything happened so fast that I never had time to think. Thankfully, it’s a mild allergy, as far as allergies go; I will not collapse in anaphylactic shock or die twitching on the floor. I’ll just violently throw up everywhere.

An elegant man stands by the kitchen, arms crossed, watching me. A much younger one comes over, stammering slightly. Is there someone else?

No.

Really? He makes a nervous motion towards the other setting. Someone else?

Still no.

He motions clearing away the other setting, his face still a question mark.

I nod, yes.

He frowns worriedly at me and starts clearing the place setting as if he’s waiting for me to stop him.

 There’s something disarming about being at a fancy restaurant where the waiter is more nervous of screwing up than you are. I search through the menu for non-seafood options. The jittery waiter places three small dishes in front of me: four olives, two small pieces of bread, half a lemon. Would I like. A drink? He has clearly just rehearsed this phrase. I glance over the drinks menu, searching for cheap wine by the glass. Then I see the page of raki.

“Can I one of these?”

The man looks nervous, as if I might have asked a trick question. I explain that I’ve never had it before. He clearly has no idea what I’m saying. He agrees that yes, I can have something from the page. He takes it from me and disappears. I expected a bit more negotiation, maybe a recommendation. A moment later, he returns with a silver tray and places the contents on my table. A jug of water. A small bucket of ice cubes. A tall glass half full of a clear spirit.

He glances back at the arm-crossed man watching from the kitchen, then looks at me hopefully, as if I might say something. I smile brightly, my default language for “I have no idea what you want from me.”

He shows me the glass. I nod. He shows me the ice cubes. Do I want ice?

I shrug in response. I don’t know. Do I?

He makes a face at me and drops a single ice cube in before topping it up with water. The drink turns milky white; Red’s description finally makes sense.

I take a sip. It tastes like anise and bad decisions. I smile at him. He breathes a sigh of relief and takes the water and the ice away again.

The menu is an amazing array of fish and shellfish dishes that I probably shouldn’t be in the same room as. It does not take long to decide on the only items that are safe for me to eat. I wave over the young waiter and point at a shepherd’s salad, which seems unlikely to have seafood in it, and a plain grilled steak. He gives me an odd look, which I cannot blame him for, and dashes off again.

Finally, I have time to look out the window. The restaurant is perched on the edge of the Bosphorus waterfront, that narrow, impossible strip of water that splits Istanbul into two continents. Across is water is Asia, not abstractly but right there, rising in layers of light from the opposite shore: apartment buildings and office blocks and dark minarets of a mosque between the buildings.

My food arrives: a plate of salad large enough to be a main course. And I suspect it is meant to, as it is quickly followed by another plate with more salad, rice and what was once a steak chopped up into small pieces. I worry that I’ve accidentally ordered the children’s meal. The beef is perfect: tender and juicy with just a touch of salt and pepper. I clear my plate. Immediately the waiter is at my shoulder to whisk it away.

I still have most of a glass of raki. He’s immediately back with the menu: would I like some dessert?

Sadly, I tell him that I simply cannot manage another bite.

He looks at me in concern. “No, thank you,” I tell him and raise my glass of raki. This is my dessert. He backs away.

Ferries cut across the strait on their fixed routes, Europe to Asia and back again. Dinner cruise boats drift past more slowly, glowing with warm strings of bulbs. Every so often, a cargo ship slides through, vast and deliberate. I watch the water, the flicker of lights breaking apart and reforming on the surface.

The waiter hovers nearby, still hoping that I will order something sticky and sweet and put him out of his misery. I do not oblige. The elegant man by the kitchen waves him over. He brings me two small plates: thick slices of banana, wedges of tart green apple. Do they think I’m too broke to afford dessert? I eat it all, guiltily.

This is a dream. I am sitting at a window seat in a top class restaurant —now full of guests—  looking over the Bosphorus while waiters smile at me every few minutes in case they can offer my heart’s desire. This is not an Istanbul I would ever find on my own but it’s also perfect. My dreamy happy state, underscored by my apparently endless glass of raki, lasts until the bill arrives.

The raki represents roughly a third of the bill. This seems outrageously until I consider that it lasted the better part of ninety minutes. I pay, leaving a cash tip for my nervous young waiter. He informs me that my taxi is waiting.

Suddenly there are three of them, ushering me out like a minor dignitary, please come again soon. Possibly I have over-tipped. I climb into the taxi, my face blushing slightly from the raki. The taxi driver has never heard of my hotel, insists that I look up the address and tell him where to go. Then, grudgingly, he flings us into the hairpin curves to climb back up and over the hill and onto the freeway to get me home.

This time I am ready with the money. I tip. Generously, I think. He stares at me in a way that suggests I am wrong.

At reception, Mr five o’clock shadow greets me like an old friend, asks if I enjoyed dinner. I assure him that it was perfect and step into the elevator, scrambling for my room card so that it will take me to the top floor.

My suite looks even more stunning in the dark. I leave the lights off. The window alongside the bath looks over the twinkling night lights of Istanbul. I had not planned on a bath. But then, I hadn’t planned any of this.

The layers of city grime dissolve into the water.

Maybe there’s something to this whole extreme travel thing.

This has been a magical evening. I have no regrets.

Part Six: The Morning After

The view from my room, excuse me, my suite, is even more impressive in the morning light, which feels excessive, as I had already decided it was perfect the night before.

Istanbul sprawls away in all directions, Turkish flags waving in a gentle breeze, the Bosphorus glittering in the distance.

I sit on the velour sofa for an hour, just looking out at the city. The sky shifts as Istanbul wakes up, sharper, less forgiving. It’s time to get moving. I tear myself away, drawn by the promise of a buffet breakfast, and head for my private elevator.

A woman comes up to the 12th floor with it, looking annoyed, like this is somehow my fault. I enter, trying to project “of course I have a suite on the top floor” energy. She stares at the wall. I stare at the door. The elevator stops again on the 10th floor. And then the 9th. And then the 8th. We make eye contact, breaking all elevator protocol. It stops again on the 7th We share a grin and rolling of the eyes. A tired-looking businessman gets in, turns his back to us. We try to go back to staring at nothing but when the elevator stops again on the 6th floor, we both burst out laughing. Finally, we arrive at the bottom. I share a smile of relief with the woman.

The cat sits by the stairwell, watching us judgmentally. The woman and I walk together to the breakfast room, where we immediately pretend that we have never interacted in any way.

The breakfast is, of course, perfect. Bowls of fruit and salads and cheeses. A cutting board with three types of bread. Small barrels of olives, green and black. There’s no coffee, instead a vast container of tea so strong it feels confrontational, accompanied by hot water so that you may negotiate it to something drinkable.

Sadly, with a feeling of watching a carriage turn into a pumpkin, I realise it is time to return to the airport for the rest of my flight.

I put on another 1.5 layers of clothing: protection against the chill of a long-haul cabin. I bid farewell to the cat, who remains unmoved. And I walk back out into the city streets, this time knowing exactly which way to go to get the Metro back to the airport.

I still think this is a ridiculous way to see a city.

Unfortunately, it worked.