Less than 12hrs after getting on a plane from Cologne to London i was back in the same departure lounge as the day before, boarding a plane to Istanbul in Turkey. We flew with Pegasus airlines. If you have never flown Pegasus i would recommend avoiding it like a Kings Cross sex worker. No online check in, delays EVERY time we fly with them, crappy planes, completely lawless health and safety regulations (or lack of)...i could go on. Nevertheless we arrived safely. More by luck than judgement.
We operate with suppliers on the Asian side of Turkey and they are only 5mins from the airport and 1min from the hotel...huge fist pump to the optimum location strategy of our Turkish friends. This was also to be an in and out trip. One day and back the following evening. Obviously we started the stay by eating one of the worlds biggest kebabs. This is not the fucking offal that fat English people eat on a Saturday night. This is proper authentic Turkish cuisine and can only be described as angel breath. If you're vegetarian then you're a loser.
The next day i took one step out of the hotel and the next step was through the front door of our suppliers. It is actually that close. What followed was an extremely mentally challenging 9 hours of approving, checking and tweaking our AW15 collection, followed by doing the same on a 60 piece Summer line. Naturally we fitted in lunch which included bread that was blown up like a balloon. It tasted good too.
By 7pm we had wrapped up the whole lot, left a massive pile of counter samples and fabric swatches on the floor of the showroom, drunk at least 15 small glasses of Turkish tea, laughed more than i care to remember, cemented working relationships that are crucial to success, and then braced ourselves to run the gauntlet of Pegasus airlines back to the UK. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable 48hrs. I am very lucky that my job is not like a job! :)
