İstanbul Day 08 - Tuesday: The Journey Back

When we wake up (as usual a little later than planned), there are already 3 empty beds in our room. Rasmus, Katharina and Marlene have already left for the airport in the middle of the night. Max, Serena and I (Vera) meet Nina and we go have a Turkish breakfast together. We forget a little bit about the time, so Max and Nina end up being quite late for their plane and have to take a taxi to the airport.
After a short working session, Serena and I plan on going sightseeing, but end up second-hand shopping instead. When we finally make it to the bus stop to go to Topkapi Palace, we realize that we forgot our newly bought clothes somewhere along the way! So we go back, find them and have lunch at an amazing vegetarian restaurant called Zencefil. Then we only have time for a quick visit to Grand Bazaar, before Serena has to leave for her ferry.
I'm starting to feel a bit lonely, but then I meet Mariame for dinner and some friends from a previous exchange for a glass of wine, after. When I get back to the hostel, I have two new roommates and it feels a bit weird not to be surrounded by now so familiar people. I guess, our workshop here is really over, now! It has been such an amazing experience - I'm already looking forward to the Berlin part of the workshop.

As my friends invited me to join them, I try to make my way to the 1. of May demonstration the next day. Sishane metro is closed, so I take the yellow minibus Dolmus and meet my friends. We do some Halay dancing, while we wait for the demonstration to start. After 3 hours of barely moving, I go back to the hostel to be on time for my train.

The shuttle bus leaves at Sirkeci station and takes me and other (mostly foreign) travelers to Halkali station, where the night train leaves to Sofia.

I try to shoot some videos of the dessert truffles mentioned in the post of day 4 - as they are now the main focus of our group, we want to show their travel to Berlin. I feel a bit weird, traveling with mushrooms and a cactus (Abiodun is cactus taken care of by a group of friends and always taken along for traveling. @abiodunthecactus - find them on Instagram ;).
After a comfortable night of sleep (except for the border controls), I wake up to have a day of exploring in Sofia.

Sofia is a city with many different religions co-existing and a rich visible history.
I have a small crisis in the afternoon, as I have a bad cold, my bank card doesn't seem to work and I feel a bit lonely. But my roommate from the previous night train, Aksel, saves my day and invites me to her place for a shower and some tea. Then I go to the main station again (which by the way is one of the worst places I've come across during this journey). I meet a guy from Mardin, who apparently came with the same train I did, and we both take the Flixbus to Bucharest. I now also remember, why I don't like traveling by bus (as it is a very curvy road and the bus driver surely must love roller coasters). The Rumanian border police single out a guy named Muhammed Ali for further questioning, but in the end, we can all continue to Bucharest.

From there I travel on with the train to Budapest. This is where I start enjoying the journey - I actually get to see some landscape from the train (as it already leaves at 2pm). After some studying, lots of sleep and the nicest border controls I've experienced so far (maybe because we are all women in the compartment), I arrive at around 5 in Budapest. I hang around at the platform for a while to film the train leaving for our video, but when I find out, it only leaves at 5:40, my commitment starts to crumble. I find a locker for my luggage and a bakery for breakfast, where I start working on my reflection paper for the parallel course of this project.

Budapest is so rainy, that I decide to go to the mineral baths. I tell myself, that the chamomile steam sauna must indeed be very good for my cold. After trying to dry my shoes with the hair dryer, I stroll around the city for a while. Simpla (it is like a whole house full of bars, shops and cafe's - all in vintage style) feels like little hipster Berlin and I remember why Budapest is one of my favourite cities. The dessert truffles start smelling a bit weird, maybe taking them on a 4 nights journey wasn't the best idea.

I take the night train at 19:25, sharing a compartment with a Polish family. They leave at around 4 in the morning and I have the compartment all to myself. The thing they serve for breakfast - it might be a crime to call it croissant - is packaged with a lot of plastic, but it is free. At 9:16 we arrive in Berlin and I am very happy to finally be home.