After my amazing 12 days in Israel/Jordan/Palestine it was time to return back home to Istanbul, which was acting as my base for a couple side trips in this part of the world.
I got back to Istanbul and that very night was the beginning of a crazy story that starts off as a really bad situation that could have gotten a lot worse, and ends in a complete miracle. This is the story of how I got my phone stolen and miraculously got it back in a city of over 15 million people:
I went out with a friend I met through couchsurfing in Istanbul the same night I got back from Israel and had a few drinks. Okay, maybe more than a few drinks. But it was a good time, in fact it was so good that after my friend returned home for the night I wanted to continue going out, and tried looking around for some bars and places to hang out at, but almost everything was closed in the wee hours of the morning. During my late night stumble into what I thought was the direction of my hostel, I was walking down a narrow street, and in front of me was a group of four guys about my age and probably Turkish who were going the opposite direction. They definitely had a few drinks themselves, and one of them in particular decided to bump into me. Bad idea, so I immediately turned around and knocked him out cold in one swing, taking care of his three other friends shortly after that. It was fun. Just kidding, the other guy actually swung at me first, which was pretty easy to dodge given his lack of stability from a little too many beverages that night. He began yelling at me in some other language which didn't turn out to be that intimidating, but he kept swinging and swinging, and in the process of this my phone fell from my hand to the ground. When I tried to retrieve it from the ground there was a drunken tornado of arms blocking my way so I had to step back and wait for the group of hooligans to continue their way up the rest of the street, and when I went to the spot where I saw the phone fall, it was missing.
This unfortunate situation made it very difficult to find my hostel that night and I spent a good couple hours meandering through random streets going in who knows what direction, trying to ask anybody that was left awake for directions and help to find the cheese at the end of this maze. After asking everyone in the city and calling the hostel a couple times, somehow I found my way back just as the sun began to rise. As Istanbul began to wake up, it was my turn to sleep and worry about the phone situation the next day.
The next day I woke up to a hangover without a phone. I know it might sound lame to make such a big deal out of losing my phone but this thing had worked so well with streamlining everything during my travels that it became my most important asset. It also acted as my camera and it had all of my Jerusalem pictures still on it with no backup. I was willing to get this thing back or replace it by any means, so the first thing I did was turn on the 'Find my iPhone' function via laptop to lock my phone and display a message stating that my phone was lost and 'please call this number (my Dad's American phone number)' if found. Later that day the phone popped up on the GPS tracker through 'Find my iPhone' and I even got the local police involved. They actually took me to the area that was shown up on the phone but we couldn't find anything.
I went back to the hostel and just as I got on the phone (via Skype) with the phone company to get a replacement, my Dad messages me via Facebook saying that some Turkish guy called him and said he had my phone and gave my Dad his number. My Dad gave me the number, we contacted the Turkish guy, and met up with this guy at his shop, and sure enough, he had the phone. It was pretty amazing. I just couldn't believe that it actually worked. The guy that had my phone wasn't the guy that stole it, but was someone who the thief must've taken the phone to to get rid of since my phone was locked and he couldn't do anything with it. The SIM card was missing for some strange reason but I got a new one, and everything was somehow miraculously back to normal.
Unbelievable. I swear I've had some of the best interactions with Turkish people. This fully supports my idea of the vast majority of people being genuinely good in this world and was another highlight of humanity that I experienced during this trip, among countless. I can't get enough of good stories like this, and the more I travel, the more great things I see happening. Some may not be as miraculous as this, but I still experience genuine acts of kindness from most people on a day to day basis, and I'll remember this experience for quite sometime.
I got back to Istanbul and that very night was the beginning of a crazy story that starts off as a really bad situation that could have gotten a lot worse, and ends in a complete miracle. This is the story of how I got my phone stolen and miraculously got it back in a city of over 15 million people:
I went out with a friend I met through couchsurfing in Istanbul the same night I got back from Israel and had a few drinks. Okay, maybe more than a few drinks. But it was a good time, in fact it was so good that after my friend returned home for the night I wanted to continue going out, and tried looking around for some bars and places to hang out at, but almost everything was closed in the wee hours of the morning. During my late night stumble into what I thought was the direction of my hostel, I was walking down a narrow street, and in front of me was a group of four guys about my age and probably Turkish who were going the opposite direction. They definitely had a few drinks themselves, and one of them in particular decided to bump into me. Bad idea, so I immediately turned around and knocked him out cold in one swing, taking care of his three other friends shortly after that. It was fun. Just kidding, the other guy actually swung at me first, which was pretty easy to dodge given his lack of stability from a little too many beverages that night. He began yelling at me in some other language which didn't turn out to be that intimidating, but he kept swinging and swinging, and in the process of this my phone fell from my hand to the ground. When I tried to retrieve it from the ground there was a drunken tornado of arms blocking my way so I had to step back and wait for the group of hooligans to continue their way up the rest of the street, and when I went to the spot where I saw the phone fall, it was missing.
This unfortunate situation made it very difficult to find my hostel that night and I spent a good couple hours meandering through random streets going in who knows what direction, trying to ask anybody that was left awake for directions and help to find the cheese at the end of this maze. After asking everyone in the city and calling the hostel a couple times, somehow I found my way back just as the sun began to rise. As Istanbul began to wake up, it was my turn to sleep and worry about the phone situation the next day.
The next day I woke up to a hangover without a phone. I know it might sound lame to make such a big deal out of losing my phone but this thing had worked so well with streamlining everything during my travels that it became my most important asset. It also acted as my camera and it had all of my Jerusalem pictures still on it with no backup. I was willing to get this thing back or replace it by any means, so the first thing I did was turn on the 'Find my iPhone' function via laptop to lock my phone and display a message stating that my phone was lost and 'please call this number (my Dad's American phone number)' if found. Later that day the phone popped up on the GPS tracker through 'Find my iPhone' and I even got the local police involved. They actually took me to the area that was shown up on the phone but we couldn't find anything.
I went back to the hostel and just as I got on the phone (via Skype) with the phone company to get a replacement, my Dad messages me via Facebook saying that some Turkish guy called him and said he had my phone and gave my Dad his number. My Dad gave me the number, we contacted the Turkish guy, and met up with this guy at his shop, and sure enough, he had the phone. It was pretty amazing. I just couldn't believe that it actually worked. The guy that had my phone wasn't the guy that stole it, but was someone who the thief must've taken the phone to to get rid of since my phone was locked and he couldn't do anything with it. The SIM card was missing for some strange reason but I got a new one, and everything was somehow miraculously back to normal.
Unbelievable. I swear I've had some of the best interactions with Turkish people. This fully supports my idea of the vast majority of people being genuinely good in this world and was another highlight of humanity that I experienced during this trip, among countless. I can't get enough of good stories like this, and the more I travel, the more great things I see happening. Some may not be as miraculous as this, but I still experience genuine acts of kindness from most people on a day to day basis, and I'll remember this experience for quite sometime.
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