The Curious case of one thing leading to another - Turkish Sojourn - Part 1

One boring and snowy November evening last year, a friend - AR rang me up to find out what I was up to; usual inquiries ranging from what was happening on the daily event front to travel plans to the homeland to elective course selection for the end semester were made. As the cliche goes 'one thing led to another' and we were talking about what we would do for New years in no time since neither of us was going homeward. 

Ideas slowly started flowing with respect to the places we could visit to usher in the New year in an above average fashion. It is a universally known truth that a suburb or a small town in Germany is not the ideal place to be for the New Years and therefore the feasibility of visiting a previously never seen big city in Germany was initially considered and options of visiting Munich, Hamburg or Frankfurt were put forth. Now the problem with visiting such cities was that everything right from travel to food to nightclubs was crazily overpriced. So a Big No to Germany for New year's it was.

Expanding the horizon a tad further, we decided we would haunt some other party hot spots of Europe, that way we would get to explore the country as well. Options in Ibiza, Madrid and Barcelona came forward in this iteration. Yet again, famous for being pricey at the end of the year; these places went off the list as quickly as they came onto it. So a Big No to Ibiza, Madrid and Barcelona it was.

Now since Germany and practically the whole of Spain was off the list, we thought Italy with Rome, Venice and Milan now stood a very good chance but alas it wasn't to be. Inquiries with a friend who had been there last winter revealed that in the off-season, some of the tourist hot spots remained shut and importantly the air fares were anywhere but in range. A Big No to Italy it was.

At this point it struck us that we had crossed out practically the whole of Western Europe from our list. Surely  there could be someplace where we could go about exploring the sights and sounds, culture and tradition and also usher in the New Year while we were at it. 

At this point I had to go the washroom where it struck me (no wonder eh?) that we should look at unconventional locations like Portugal, Greece or Turkey which were equally famous on the tourist and party circuits and were also cost effective. The unrest in Greece was and still is all over the news and hence scared the Be-Jesus out of us. The deteriorating condition of Portugal in the European Union was also something that made us very skeptical about spending our New years there. 

The remainder was Turkey. A few days of diligent and encouraging research indicated that it was the place to be; both for a holiday and for partying as well. The costs worked out to be within limit and our expectations thereby soared; a group of 10 people was assembled quickly and a consensus taken that all of us would be spending New years in Turkey.

Our bags were packed and off we flew to Istanbul, Turkey for the first leg of our Turkish sojourn. 

To Be Continued...