Today is pretty much a travel day. We started off as usual, having a nice relaxed breakfast and filled our tummies with local delicacies. I have grown quite fond of Swedish pancakes wih strawberry jam and whipped cream, and hashbrowns with Lingonberry jam, which is a bit sour. I also loved the sights of the sleek triple-bendy buses while having breakfast from our hotel.
We bid goodbye to my wife's aunt, whom we had bonded quite nicely with over the last few days. Taking the Oresundstag for the 5th time in 3 days, we were pleasantly surprised when the train slowed down a lot over the bridge due to traffic ahead, allowing us to take some pics of the famous Strait, and one last look back at Malmo, Sweden. Copenhagen airport always seems busy, with a lot of crowd. With this being Christmas week, there were long queues everywhere from checkin to security check to border control, so we did well to reach the airport 3 hours before departure, and we had just enough time to go through everything in a relaxed manner. We managed to get a final bite of Danish pastries and hot chocolate before boarding the flight back to Istanbul.
I had a bit of a nasty surprise as I got a return receipt from Sixt, the Copenhagen car rental firm, claiming I had a 10cm+ long scratch on the car, when I knew for sure I didnt hit anything (unlike my earlier tryst with a bridge in Rovaniemi). Not a great feeling on your first car rental with a new company. I did take photos after the car return just for such scenarios and made a mental note to follow up the next day as we were about to board the flight.
I caught up on a couple of movies on the way but the moment we landed in Istanbul we had a feeling we were back in Asia. Be it the airport toilets explicitly mentioning that the tap water is not fit to drink (contrary to the ones in Scandinavian countries) or the urge to control yourself rather than use the airport toilets or the fact that we get royally ripped off by taxis. I was in two minds about the transport from airport to hotel. I would have preferred using public transport, but with hungry and tired kids in tow, with it already being 9pm when we started, money considerations came in secondary and we took the ubiquitous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) yellow taxi.
I was told that there is a road toll of 200 that I had to pay in addition to the meter fare, but I saw that the toll was only 80 when we reached there! The driver made it a point to start the meter, stop right after the airport entrance and then start discussing in detail about the hotel location, surcharges and trying to get the navigation app to recognise the location multiple times using voice recognition (which it failed miserably), while all the time the meter reading made me gulp. It must be a nice entertainment for the taxi drivers seeing the tourists turn different shades of red. Anyway, at least the taxi driver followed the Google maps route (which I made sure he knew I was watching as well).
We finally reached the hotel, which seemed to be in a very residential area with nothing much nearby. The taxi driver demanded cash saying there is additional surcharge for debit card from the merchant. The frustration sprang up a conspiracy theory in my head that it's all a big game plan by Turkish Airlines to make sure tourists spend a lot of time and money commuting from place to place!
The hotel reception was another long wait. One hotel receptionist went off to do something in the middle of the checkin, handing over to another person, who went off to make a long call as well. After the efficiency of Northern Europe, this was quite an irritant, especially late at night with sleepy kids.
Anyway we were done for the day and we settled into our rooms. I have a sneaky suspicion that tomorrow might be another drama filled day to end our trip. I was slightly worried if I had enough cash on hand for tomorrow as well - while Turkey was expected to be cashless, people here still seem to prefer cash.
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