Woah, quite a trip. Everything went pretty smoothly, but there were some funny things along the way.
The flight was very pleasant. There were touch screens on every seat and you could watch movies, listen music or play games during the flight. As the flight was only for 3 hours, that was somewhat unexpected. I watched Hobbit, which had just a perfect duration. The meal was nice too, we could choose from two different courses.
When we got to Istanbul, I had some stressing moments at the passport control. For everyone else, it tooks just few seconds as they looked the passport with the computer. For me, it took several minutes. The officer looked worried and curious, and I begun to wonder what is wrong. Then after some stressing minutes, he gave me my passport back and it was all good. Of course I didn't have anything to worry, but still it's stressing to think "why is he looking so worried? Might there be something wrong?" while standing there in front of him and the camera.
After that we headed to subway. And the ticket was the funniest I have ever seen. After I put money in to ticket automat, it gave me a plastic token. It looked like kid's play coin, fat and red. That token opened a gate to subway. I gotta take a pic of that token when we get back, or even take on home with me as a souvenir.
Izmit isn't exactly a tourist town. Not much english going on in here. All the signs, menus and things are just in turkish. Not many people speak english in here. So pretty much what I expected. My friend is wearing New Zealand's ice hockey jersey, and that surely gets people's attention. As it's not enough that we are typical nordic guys, one has an ice hockey jersey. Ice hockey isn't a familiar sport in here, the owner in one restaurant asked us why we are here. When I told him we are watching ice hockey, his expression revealed that he had no idea what we are talking about. Although he said "Ah, ok. Very nice." to us, but his face told different story.
I placed some bets for today's games:
Bulgaria - New Zealand 2 (2.36)
China - Israel 2 (14.00)
Turkey - Mexico 1 (14.00)
In the last 2 games both get over 7.5 goals (3.18)
Let's see if I can make all of those miss. ♦