Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now

A weekend of recovery - unsurprisingly - followed Friday's flowing of single malt. It was about 1/2 way through the event, when I had a glass refilled with Johnny Blue for the walk across the ballroom to the next station, that I realized the occasion had moved beyond "tasting" to actual "drinking". Then it was Grand Marnier, and then further cocktails, as another Friday merged into the Saturday hours and incoherence.

Trying desperately to get back into a proper Monday frame of mind, and failing miserably. Instead, advertised international seat sales from our national carrier have me asking the vagabond's age-old question: "Quo Vadimus?" The answer, from nowhere, might just be to Byzantium. Constantinople. Istanbul. By any name as glorious, as lonely planet claims.

For I was originally scheming about a flight back to England for 10 days or so in February, to rewalk the favored Thames and rehaunt a few Oxford college bops. That plan still holds, especially as Patrick Stewart will be holding court in the West End as Antony. Still the question remained: what to do in between the celebratory weekends to make the trek that much more worthy of an epic label?

Easyjet quickly supplied the magical 78 pounds all-in option: Luton to Istanbul - Sabiha Gökçen roundtrip. Four nights among its magical bazaars and dervishs, and a first step into Asia prior to the dreamed of Moscow-Samarkand-Beijing odyssey of 2009. A veritably perfect voyage.

So, fired off the email to old flatmate Berat Yardmici to see if he still lives in his favorite city, and googled through a few cheap hostels. Will sleep on it one night before flight bookings tomorrow, but as with the genesis of other truly great traveling ideas, I already sense an inevitability.

"If one had but a single glance to give the world," Alphonse de Lamartine said, "one should gaze on Istanbul." Amazing to think that upon waking this morning I had utterly no plan, thought, real opportunity, or hope of doing so. Now it seems a short three months away.