Day thirty-two’s entry (yes, this one) is going to be short, because it was a bit of a crappy day. The day started well enough, with Anna and I planning to walk down to the ferries, to catch a ferry across to the Asia side of Istanbul, and to walk back across the huge suspension bridge (about a mile long) connecting the Asiatic and European sides of Istanbul. So far so good, right? Sounds like a fine plan? Yep.
But we had no sooner gotten off the ferry and started walking than I found that my right knee hurt. Which is odd, because that kind of thing rarely, if ever, happens. And then it was my left ankle. Well, ok, maybe I’d walked too much while wearing inappropriate footwear in the past few days (we had certainly walked 15 miles or so over the past three days, with me wearing flops or loafers). So I pressed on for a bit, and we walked into the market area on the Asian side of Istanbul.
And that’s when things got rougher. I started to feel weak, the joint and muscular soreness appeared in my back, shoulders, calves, and forearms, and over the course of an hour or so I went from “hmm, something may not be quite right” to “something is most certainly not right here.” It’s not a great feeling to become palpably more sore and ill feeling with each passing minute.
So I’ve traveled with enough people (*cough* Anna *cough*) who don’t slow down when they’re getting sick and basically refuse to deal with it until it’s completely debilitating, and I know the best thing for it is to just rest, drink lots of water, and get medical attention if it’s getting dramatic. Well, ok, I made that last bit up, and I’d be as slow as anyone to go that far. But I did pull the plug on walking over the bridge and the rest of the afternoon’s walking / exploration, and Anna was kind enough to accompany me back to the hotel, where I rested, feeling like utter crap, for the afternoon. She headed out shopping in Pera while I napped.
Here’s where things could become “and that’s how I was diagnosed with swine flu and rickets,” but where they fortunately did not become so. After three or four hours of rest, lots of water, 800mg of Ibuprofin, and some chocolate… I was pretty much better. Whatever it was had hit me like a ton of bricks and then evaporated.
So, after not really doing anything for the day, I finally got moving around 7pm, and Anna and I hit a cleverly named but unfortunately signed “Faces” Italian food restaurant (hint: if you’re using that name, don’t use an upside down “e” for the “a”). The dinner wasn’t the spectacular gourmet fest that the previous night’s had been, but it was good solid non-Turkish food (Penne Arrabiata for me, a beef noodle Thai-style concoction for Anna).
See? Short day. I was just happy to not be genuinely sick or at risk of amputation or something when so far from home. With renewed health and after a fantastic time in Istanbul, we called it an early night. Tomorrow would be our oh-so-brief visit to Budapest, a city we’d both been to before and which we couldn’t pass up when the opportunity presented itself.