In the morning, Erin and I walked to the supermarket to grab some food for an authentic German breakfast back at her apartment. Muesli, salami, cheese, and assorted breakfast pastries that you fish out of the coolest pastry dispenser ever, not unlike one of those arcade games in which you use a claw to try and pick up a purple stuffed gorilla. Then she guided me with mythical swiftness and grace through the network of trains and busses to Schoenefeld International Airport. Erin graciously stayed with me all the way through the preliminary security check to the Pegasus Airlines ticket counter, just in case her German could be of use. I checked my bag, hugged Erin goodbye for now, and headed through the second and more official security check. Arriving at my gate, I discovered the waiting room for the gate behind a third security check where they check your passport and boarding pass from behind plexiglass before allowing you to enter the actual holding area for your flight. Yet despite the three levels of security, Schoenefeld is a fairly small airport. It's the awesome kind of small airport in which you walk right out across the tarmac and up the portable stairs to get on the plane. Each Pegaus Airlines plane has its trademark winged horse painted on the upturned tip of each wing, and as the plane lifted off the runway, it was strangely comforting to look out the window and see my little friend Pegasus flying along.
At Sabiha Gökcen International airport in Istanbul, I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac, just as at Schoenefeld, but this time, they had metro-style busses waiting to take passengers to the gate. My impression (which could easily be incorrect) is that Sabiha Göcken is like the Burbank Airport of Turkey–it's not the biggest airport around, or the most convenient, but by golly, it has airplanes. So operating based upon that potentially false presumption, I expected stepping into the airport to be more-or-less like stepping into an Ottoman bazaar where people are milling about everywhere and bartering for goods and all of the rugs and incense and hookah are duty free. Instead, what I found inside the doors was a place with all the pandemonium of a turkish marketplace but without any of the old-world charm I was hoping for. Worst of both worlds. It was actually very clean and modern (both in design and tidiness), and I appreciated that, but there were still crowds everywhere, and no one seemed to have an understanding–much less, an appreciation–for the concept of a line. With chaos all around, and all nationalities of confused people, I simply headed straight where I needed to go every step of the way, and spoke maybe a total of 10 words to anyone (speaking English probably wouldn't have profited me much, but the point is that I didn't have to try). I reached my next gate without incident through a security check, the crowded and confusingly signage-rich shopping area, and up and down levels 5 different times. If I hadn't stuck out like a sore Caucasian thumb, I'd have seemed to belong there. It was as if I was riding through the airport aboard an actual pegasus. I navigated that place like Ferdinand Magellan, if Ferdinand Magellan had a map of the airport, a turn-by-turn guide, spoke perfect Turkish, and had been born and raised inside the airport. If you think I'm letting this go to my head, don't worry – I haven't forgotten that I already missed a flight in my own confounded country. When I got to my gate, I grabbed a bite to eat, went to the bathroom, and then didn't leave for the next 2 hours.
Four hours and a very uneventful, sleep-filled flight later, Pegasus Airlines flight 8040 landed at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan right on time at 4:20 in the morning, which is a time that shouldn't ever be referred to as 'on time'. Manas International doubles as a US military base because it's a short hop to Afghanistan from a country that doesn't require US citizens to obtain a visa. This was very apparent when we arrived, because there were dozens of planes already on the ground, and every single one of them was painted gray-green and bore the label 'United States Air Force'. There were no planes of any other variety, and I'm not sure whether that was due to the fact that it was 4:20 in the morning, or to the fact that it's an airport in Kyrgyzstan. After making it through the short customs line and grabbing my bag from the carousel, I emerged into the cool morning air of Kyrgyzstan and was greeted by… a throng of taxi drivers. Cheerful vultures masquerading as winged horses waiting to ferry you 'magically' to your destination. The trouble was, I didn't really know my destination. Rudi had emailed me the address, but I had just kept it in a file on my computer in the event that he wouldn't be able to pick me up. And I had told him that I'd be happy to wait at the airport so he wouldn't have to come so early in the morning. He had assured me that he would come to pick me up, but when I didn't see him, I was glad to think that perhaps he took me up on my offer to come later. So I waited on the curb for an hour with at least one of the vultures (usually three) perched on my shoulder the whole time, waiting for a fare. Eventually I pulled out my computer to look for the address, and discovered with a rush of surprise and delight that the little Manas International Airport in the oft-forgotten country of Kyrgyzstan not only has internet, but has free wi-fi. So in addition to looking up the address, I also sent Rudi an email saying basically "I'm here, but please take your time." No sooner had I closed the computer than I found Rudi walking up to me with a big smile on his face. He was accompanied by Janysh, the FEBC station manager in Bishkek. Apparently they had been waiting for me almost as long as I had been there, and we must have simply missed each other when I came out and was swarmed by the cab drivers. With a hug and some lively conversation, we piled into the car, and Janysh drove us into town with the mythical swiftness and grace of a pegasus.
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