Turkish Delight: Part 1 - Travelling to Istanbul

Next up for me was Istanbul. The week in between was spent training and particularly trying to work on the mental side of what had happened on the weekend before. I thought back over how I'd felt in the poules at Grenoble and tried through considering my feelings that day to change how I approach poule matches like that in general.

I'd also tried to work on several key actions that I'd hoped a reasonable point would follow from. These were mainly my initial actions after the "Allez" and I focused on make the first step small and building several actions after that which would act as queues for me to act a certain way. Basically, I'd make my mind up to do one of several rehearsed actions after the "allez" and hopefully build the points from there.

I travelled to Istanbul from Paris Charles de Gaulle with Air France. A direct flight this time to avoid the disasters with luggage of last year. While waiting for my flight in the departure lounge I ran into Keeth Smart from the US team who I'd met at the competition last year. Keeth's a fantastic fencer and former world no. 1. We talked about our schedules for the season and the monotony of airports, hotels and venues while travelling to these competitions.

We soon boarded the flights, loaded with newspapers from around the world to eat up time, and took our seats. The flight passed by without incident until about an hour in over Zagreb when we ran into the most severe and prolongued turbulence turbulence I have ever experienced. At first the plane shook quite suddenly but thinking it was just a small pocket of turbulence there was a slight chuckle from the passengers. This shacking continued at a light consistent basis until suddenly the plane shook violently. The lowered seat tray in front of me smacked up and hit the seat in front of me, as it felt like the whole plane dropped suddenly, my stomach being left behind in the air.

And on it went. I smiled nervously at the people in the row across from me but my hands gripped the arm rest tightly and my palms were sweating. All of a sudden, as quickly as it had began it stomped. A few more futile bumps to try and dislodge us from the sky but then nothing. Smooth flying for the rest of the way.

When we landed we joked about the headlines "Freak plane crash wipes out US olympian and Irish Men's Sabre team". Glad that we were alive, I was even more pleased to discover my bags in the airport in one piece. There was a representative of the Turkish Federation there to welcome us, who informed us that the next shuttle would be in about an hour or so.

We sat to have coffee and talk some more. The conversation drifted through a brief account of Irish history (I tried to make it as brief as possible) but much more excitingly than that Keeth told me about a training camp in Budapest the week before the Budapest A-Grade with the US and Hungarian teams. Furthermore, he suggested it might be possible for me to come along and train with them. I was a fantastic oppurtunity for me and I was determined to get on board if I could.

We snailed our way through the perpetual traffic jam that is Istanbul and the enourmous bottle-neck that is the Bosphourous until eventually reaching my hotel on the Asian side. Thanking Keeth and acknowledging the Germans who had joined us, who barely grunted in return I got out at the gates of the sports complex which housed the venue and my hotel.

It was the same hotel I stayed in last year and just as crap as I remembered. None of the staff in the hotel spoke English.

"AIUSHIUFSJI aLISAUGD edklfsaaliuh sdfaiugafwiu", they said to me in that excited angry sounding Turkish way of theirs.
"I'm with the Irish team", I explained in the ignorant and slow voice of a ignorant and slow foreigner. "...uhm... Esgrim... Irlande"
"AKJdflkasdoiuHlkjdsaf asoiudfh;l ado;ifklajei&%$&^ dsafhjalkjhdflkjh?" he repeated pointing at a piece of paper.
"I don't speak Turkish", I explained in the voice of someone having flashbacks of hideously rude taxi drivers in Izhmir after several minutes of them shouting at me in a language I blantantly couldn't understand. So the receptionist scuttled into the back to bring out the manager of this fine establishment.
"JDKHKLHFskjhakdhf... full... FDIuhsldhlsjfhiurwe... Esgrim... adlkjfldksjfhdf ljsdklfjalkdxcbulk... full", explained the manager who I presumeed had risen to this position because of his ability to grow a thicker mustache.

At this stage I had well figured out that they were trying to tell me that the hotel was in fact full and that I may well have to share my room with a complete stranger. Not partucularly fussed on the idea, I continued to play dumb took my keys and headed for my room, whispering something under my breath about the likelihood of Turkish asscesion to the EU.