Blind Booking, An Awesome Way Of Travelling to Unknown

Have you ever heard of blind date? Of course you have. At least most of you might have heard and even some of you may have done it in the past. What about Blind Booking? Well, until 2004, I haven't. It was amazing though. Let me tell you about it a bit more.


It was May 2004 and I was living in Cologne, Germany. Cologne, the heart of Germanwings, the first low-cost airline company I know, was and is an amazing city with full of surprises. This experience for me was also like that.

I was receiving regular emails from germanwings.com regarding their promotions and even once I booked my flight to Istanbul through their website. This time the email I got was about Blind Booking. It was saying that they were offering 10 cities for €19 and 10 cities for €39 one way ticket. The headline was blind booking and I didn't think what it really meant. You know, one almost never reads the tiny detail writings at the bottom of promotion sites. Since they are so small and not really important (well in this case they were), I usually don't care about them. I always wanted to go to Paris and this way it would cost me a very small amount to go there. All I saw about the promotion was that there would be a 48 hour period and then I'd choose my destination. Or so I thought. As a matter of fact it was the period I would learn where I was gonna go at my selected date. Yeah, I forgot to mention how the system worked:

- You choose the dates of your travel. You choose how much you would pay (€19 or €39) and then pay the amount. The amounts are at least €33 and €49 now though.

It was that simple. Well, not really. Since I thought I would be able to choose my destination after 48 hours, I just went for it and purchased my ticket. It was non-refundable of course, like all the low-cost airline tickets. And I started to wait. I thought I was gonna wait 2 days but the next day I received an email from Germanwings saying that my ticket was to Stockholm. I thought there should be a mistake and contacted them. They told me that it was how their system worked. And there was nothing to be done for that. I was pissed and since I didn't know anyone in or from Stockholm, I thought not to go.

There was still a lot of time until my travel. I was a member of an email group of EVS (European Voluntary Service) volunteers and one day I saw an email from a girl saying that she was back to her home in Stockholm. I was really happy and immediately wrote her about it. She told me that she was living with her boyfriend and they would welcome me to their home for my travel. I was so happy after this news. €38 is not a big amount but at the time, still a student and getting about €300 for my food and pocket money, it was important for me. With her in Stockholm, I thought I should go. It was one of the most adventurous trips of my life.

For 2,5 days, I spent €36 only for public transportation and had great time in there. She, İnci, showed me around. We went to real 3D movie. One wouldn't need 3D glasses for this since the screen was an imitation of human eye. We went to a nature museum and for the first time I saw dinosaur skeleton. It was 2,5 days gone like a wind. After I took the photo of a small street, these kids were coming up and asked in Swedish why I shot their photo. My friend explained in English that we were tourists. They started talking in English and posed for me.

If you ask me if I would do it again, the answer is definitely a big YES. This is how it's now. They have different alternatives for different needs of blind booking. But the prices have gone up and free 20kg. luggage is now for €15. It's still an amazing way of travelling.

San Francisco and Istanbul

Istanbul, by far, is the most amazing city on earth, for me. No point in questioning that. However, if you really like a place/city and find a similar one in another part of the world, that's another thing.

About 10 years ago, before going to Cologne/Germany for my voluntary service, I checked the city, Cologne, and found out that it was similar to Istanbul in many different points. So, it was like a second home for me. Although I've not yet been there again, it still has a different place in my heart.

I felt the same thing when I went to California few weeks back. My friend/grandson Caleb told me that when they came to Istanbul after a few months time in Philipinnes, he felt like home in Istanbul because of the similarities between Istanbul and San Francisco. In not just one but many aspects. When I spent couple of days in San Francisco, I felt he was right about it.

The cable car was similar to our nostalgic tram in Istiklal Street. There were several lines across the streets of San Francisco. One could even hang on the sides and take beautiful shots of the city. In the past it was used as a public transportation. Nowadays it's more of a touristic attraction mostly. This photo on the right side is showing how the cable car's direction is changed. It's still the old system as in the 1970s. In the past people were allowed to help push the car around but it's done only by the staff now. I'd love a chance to push it around even only once.



The roads and streets were all up and down. There were, of course, straight streets but the city was built on several hills as I've observed. So, one would need to climb up and down a lot if one wants to wonder around. That may sometimes be really tiring but then cable cars come to our aid. They help go up and down those little hills.

There are beautiful streets when you go up and down the streets by the way. Especially Lombard Street. It's the world's most crooked street. It spirals left and right downwards and is beautiful all the way down. It may be tiring but it's definetely worth walking up and down if you're eager to see more of the city's hidden beauties. Especially for photography, I loved the richness of the city. As you can see, even while on the cable car, you can take great shots!

The Golden Gate Bridge was like our Bosphorus Bridge.

So long, so amazing, so red.
I think I liked it more because of its colour being red. It's on the edge of the bay and you can get a good view if you're really lucky, because the Bay Area, because of the climate and the nature, there is mist most of the time. One could get amazing photos if one is really lucky. Sometimes the clouds come down so much that you need to climb up a higher point to see the bridge's columns.

There are also some specific points organised to let the public go and take nice shots of the bridge.

As I said before, when you ask me what I most liked about the bridge, it's the colour. Especially during sunrise and sunset it becomes a lot more beautiful.

You should wear a jacket, since it's really windy up those places. My guide, Willow, let me go around it to some places, I believe most people wouldn't know.

The people. Yes, the people were awesome. They were quite friendly all the time. And very talkative. They would look and answer my question if they knew the answer. Always so helpful the people were. Like my city, Istanbul.

The hospitality was also like ours. Maybe even better.

There is so much to tell about this beautiful west coast city. Especially the similarities with my beloved Istanbul. As for now, this is all I'll tell.

Welcome to My New English Blog

Hello all,

I have a few blogs, in which I write only in Turkish. My photography blog, however, has English and Turkish notes under each photo. They are short ones and I think this blog is a great way to show my photography to people but not my thoughts and ideas. That's why I opened this blog for my future writings.

There will not be just one topic though. Sometimes I'll write on my travels, other times about politics. Maybe some of my ideas and daily happenings. I'm sure, though, there will be a lot of things about Istanbul, my beautiful and sweet city. Oftentimes, I call it 'World's most beautiful city!'

So, let's start blogging!

Cheers!

El Azem.