High Way to Hell

It has been first time I let Ferran get the bus tickets. Obviously the 13 years old fooled him and me on the same package. Never again! After paying our eyes out for a coke and a fresh orange juice, just 15 euros or such, we went to get the bus to Aksaray, there we had to move around the bus station and find "a place where the buses blink their lights and stop to get you to Ankara". Sounds kinda easy, right?
So it went as follow. Nobody talked english. They love to confuse "right" with "left" which are among the very few words they know in english. Arrived Aksaray at 23:10, no tickets left to Ankara. Let me enlight you why so. What would you do after a "Ramadan", I mean, not decently eating and sleeping for more than twenty days. You said "Celebrate"? Then you are right. That's what most muslims do after Ramadan, they go visit their families and celebrate. So...it's near an impossible feat to acquire a bus ticket for some place at Turkey right after Ramadan. Solution: take second option, walk and find "that place where buses blink their lights and stop to pick you up". We walked. We found a place...where buses stop, but, awfully, they don't pick you up if they are full, instead they put gas, and clean the windows on a gas station.

That was around 00:10 on sunday. We were lucky, was just a bit cold. We needed 45 minutes or so to learn that we should walk over the road, to that famous place where blah blah, we did. There was colder, darker, more scary. Buses were blinking lights at us, so were some cars and most of the trucks, we understood that they meant "Get out of there, we gonna roll over you if you don't!".

00:50 the backpack was being a hell of weight. A bus to Istanbul stop at gas station and I went ask if they were full. The driver was eating, we moved to the gas station to ask the driver when he'll finish eating if the bus was full. It was. More even, a bus stop at the other side and picked some persons that were waiting inside a car...meanwhile.

We paid one more hour for this nice move. 2:06 a.m. Sunday, like 20 buses have passed "blinking their lights farewell to us", we even had a nice police show, when a police car stop 3 cars and a frigorific van just beside us.

2:06 a.m. Finally a bus blinks and stops. I was begining to wonder if was a dream. There's only 1 free sit...Ja! The bus doesn't stop at Ankara central station, goes to Istanbul..."Hey! We do not mind" We climb up, Ferran was pleasently sit beside driver's so he was able to enjoy a nice turkish conversation. I slept til 4 a.m. or so, then Ferran got moved to my side.

5:15 a.m. Arrived to Ankara. Enough time to find a cheap hotel (Heh) that allows us to check in at 8 a.m. find the magic tournament place, sleep a couple hours and get a shower.

I have to say that Ferran did a good job setting an alarm in the desktop, otherwise we probably have slept til evening. Went to the tournament place, and ate breakfast. I will let Ferran write about it, I'm sure he will enjoy it, and so will magic fans. The cafe, called On-a-on, was placed on a centric street at 3rd floor. It is a rock-metal oriented enviroment, so we spent the day listening Ironmaiden, Judas Priest, Blind Guardian, Bon Jovi and of course AC/DC, whose first song of the day, was, and had to be "High Way to Hell".

Best wishes and two free advices, get your bus tickets with anticipation, check what you have just bought, otherwise you can get involved on a high way to hell.