I think it is going to be a long day.
At 00:15, I was picked up by the small shuttle bus, which squeezed one more person inside than the number of seats. We got to the airport fairly quickly since the driver had a heavy foot. We also flew through two toll booths and I heard alarms sound as we did (apparently didn’t pay).
The flight out from Sabiha Gökçen Airport was with easyJet, a budget airline. Here in Turkey you go through security before you check in. I took three bottles of water through security since liquids don’t seem to be an issue in this country. While standing in the check in line, I heard this crash and a child crying. One of the check-in counters next to me collapsed and fell down onto a boy. A bunch of people ran over and lifted the counter off. I don’t think the boy was hurt too bad because he was moving and crying. But I guess business as usual in Turkey.
If that’s not enough excitement, in line a man tries to talk to me but he doesn’t know English. He’s trying to talk about his bag, he unzips it and there are green leaves inside. But when I hand over my passport to get my ticket, the man puts his bag on the scale as if it was mine and talks to the woman attending to me in Turkish. She asks me, “Did you prepare this luggage yourself?” I say, “That’s not mine, it’s his.” She says, “That’s not my concern.” After asking me a few times, I’m finally able to get the man to take his bag away so I can get mine on the scale. I was handed my ticket and then the man disappeared.
Then they couldn’t make boarding the airplane straight forward. First of all you have to go through security a second time. The TV screens said for my flight to “Wait in lobby,” but everyone else already boarded the plane. A man called out the city for my flight and I stepped outside and he pointed and said “that plane.” There are no gates, but you have to go outside to get to any planes. I was surprised to see everyone already boarded and I was one of the last passengers to get on. I think all of this is why I want to take advantage of the rail system in Europe.
After all that, I did make it to Switzerland at 5:30AM (and a time zone change again 6+). I probably got 1-2 hours of sleep. After catching a bus to downtown Basel, I took another train to the Goetheanum. It is in a more residential area and was really nice in the morning. There’s the main building, the Goetheanum, and around it a bunch of strangely designed houses, and nice gardens and all.
Afterwards, I headed back to downtown Basel for a quick look around. Then I got on a train to Bern (capital of Switzerland). Got off the train and looked around for about 30 minutes. Back on the train to Interlaken. A little cooler here since the city is up in the mountains. After arriving, I walked over a mile to a hostel and they said there are beds available. No wonder there are some free, the place is in the middle of nowhere. I stayed the rest of the day in Interlaken. You can see some of the highest mountains in Europe in the distance, there is lake/river right here and some of the best scenery yet.