The Nature of Travel

As some of you might have heard, I was planning on going to Istanbul this weekend. I realized at the beginning of last week that if I took a vacation day on Sunday, I would get a 4-day weekend b/c of our holiday on Monday. I spent the next 5 days trying to figure out where to go and who to go with, and settled on Istanbul with a fellow colleague from Georgetown Student Affairs. Qatar Airways puts together some pretty great weekend travel packages to various cities around the globe, and when I was finally ready to book the weekend, it was too late to get confirmation from the hotels as part of the package. So I ventured to just buy the tickets and stay at a hostel, but again to no avail... apparently this weekend is the weekend that everybody returns to Qatar from their summer holidays, and there was not a single returning flight from Istanbul until midday next Wednesday the 5th, which was not an option for someone who needed to be back at work on the 4th.

Although it would have been amazing to take a short jaunt through Istanbul this weekend, the sheer idea of last-minute travel plans was exhilarating. Back in the states, travel to exciting destinations often needs to be planned, calculated, carefully considered. But here if you have a whim or desire to go somewhere, you can arrange things at the drop of a hat and be on the plane in a day or two. I unfortunately waited a little too long (I tried to book flights Thursday night for a Friday midday flight which I would have been able to do if there were available seats on the return flight), but in general that's just how things work here. And a great part of working at Education City with a lot of young professionals in their 20-somethings is that you're surrounded by people who are interested in doing the same kind of traveling as you. People are up for anything, and it's extremely easy to find a travel buddy. Other destinations we were contemplating for the weekend were Athens, Budapest, Jordan, Muscat, Cape Town, Colombo, and even Kathmandu. For many, the more exotic, the better.

Which brings up another question: what to do for eid break. It happens in mid-October, and we've got a full week with a weekend on either side. There have been talks of Oman, India, Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Africa. We'll see what comes of the planning. This time I need to do a little more research first...