Istanbul - End of tour

19th & 20th June

Our wake up call was atsupposed to be at 5am, to give everyone time to have breakfast, get organised and be on the bus ready to go at 6am. After only making it to bed around 2, I knew that it was going to be difficult. When our alarm went off at 5am I got out of bed (Still a lot drunk) managed a shower, but for some reason I went back to bed. We were woken at 3 minutes to six when the maid came into our room to check our minibar. We managed to throw everything (I thought) and be on the bus within 5 minutes. I was not in the best shape, along with many others, and was dreading the 11 hour bus ride back to Istanbul. We weren't the only ones that missed the wake up call. Kev had to go and get about 4 others out of bed, so we didn't get going until about twenty past 6. Just after we'd left out hotel I started to have thoughts about what I'd left behind in our rush to get out the door. I was certain that my phone charger was still plugged into the wall, bathers hanging on the lamp, and god knows what else. I did forget my phone, but somehow Dan manged to pick it up on the rush out.

The bus ride was loooonnggg. Especially when you're still a little drunk. There were plenty of movies, but for the most part I couldn't keep my eyes open. Dan was worse than me, he even had to get the bus to pull over at the nearest service station for an emergency toilet stop. They were nice enough to give him a bag incase of another emergency.

About 3 hours out of Istanbul we were pulled up by the police for a regular check. The Police weren't satisfied that he was going to be able to get back to Istanbul - because of hour many hours he'd been driving and how far he still had to go. We were stuck on the side of the road for quite a while why Kev and the bus driver tried to sort it out with the cops. We eventually got the bus pulled over into the servo across the road, where somehow Kev found a guy who would drive the bus back to Istanbul for us. The police were happy so off we went, again. This bus driver wasn't as crazy as our bus driver so the trip was very slow. After we'd gotten about half an hour up the road we made another stop so our original driver could take over again - we must've been far enough away from the police!!!

We got back into Istanbul around 7pm, so we all unloaded our stuff into our hotel (different one from the start of the tour) and all headed back to our favourite rooftop terrace for dinner, shishas and farewell beers whilst watching the football.

Our last day in Istanbul was up to us. Our flight wasn't until about 9pm, so we decided to go check out a bit more of the city. We got up late - needed to catch up on a few zzz's - and checked out. We dropped a big bag of clothes off at a laundromat and headed for the city centre. We took a funicular up the hill and found ourselves in Istanbul's main shopping area. There were loud chants and it wasn't until we'd walked a little further that we realised we'd walked into a massive protest rally. There were about 30 cops, equipped with full riot gear and tear gas guns, walking behind them, but they were quite peaceful and just went about their chanting. We checked out a few shops and the busy area before heading back to our region for a McDonalds lunch - my McTurko wasn't that enjoyable - and picking up our freshly washed clothes (for a rather hefty fee). The stupid shuttle times for the airport meant we were at the airport by 5pm - 4 hours before our flight. We had to sit around for 2 hours before check in opened

lunch.

Our flight from Istanbul to Athens was not a long one - only about an hour, and we were a bit concerned when the flight was going to be delayed by 15 minutes. We were only going to have about an hour after the flight landed until the last train left into the centre of Athens. We were delighted at the efficiency at the Athens airport - it took us 15 minutes from when we set foot off the plane until we set another foot on the train. It helps when passport control doesn't even look at your passport and your bags are at the carousel waiting for you. Around midnight we arrived at our very sketchy Athens home for the next 3 nights!