Since people are pressing me, I'll provide the promised answer to the riddle: “Why do your ears pop on a plane, even though the cabin is pressurized?”
To be honest, I'm a bit too lazy to spell it out, because the explanation looks clunky. But I guess I have to.
The airplane cabin is pressurized because at an altitude of over 3 km, an unprepared person starts having health problems, namely – altitude sickness. The process of the body getting used to the altitude is called acclimatization, which Igor Shchukin and Edik mentioned to us in the part before last.
If pressurization weren't done, the plane wouldn't be able to climb higher (and the climb rate would be limited too). For a jet plane, flying at such an altitude is extremely unprofitable in terms of fuel consumption.
In theory, the pressure in the plane could be like the atmosphere at sea level, meaning the theoretical 0-meter mark. Then during the climb, we would feel practically nothing.
But the pressure difference inside and outside the cabin must not exceed a certain value, otherwise the wear on the fuselage (body) will be too great. At maximum, this value in units we understand is about 0.6 atmospheres.
This means that at takeoff, the aircraft captain turns on cabin pressurization, but the pressure inside will differ from the outside pressure by less than a full atmosphere. Yet at the 0-meter level (or wherever we're taking off from) there was a pressure of one atmosphere — meaning the pressure in the cabin drops, which is why your ears pop.
Technically, any modern plane can easily maintain a pressure of one atmosphere in the cabin — but this is only done in critical cases, like an aggravation of passengers' illnesses. The reason, as I already said, is to reduce wear and tear.
Now I will with an almost clear conscience continue the story. Why almost? Because I still won't talk about us not being sold gas and petrol in this part — it just won't fit, by the looks of it. Turns out I'm deceiving everyone and telling the answers to the riddles only every other part, rather than in the very next one. All the better — it fuels the interest.
And the story will continue with how we bought tickets for the ferry. It went like this. The conversationalists (almost conspirators, but the other way around) consisting of me and the two Igors, that is, those who were least afraid of communicating with the locals, and knew the most English, went inside the terminal light-handed as a trio. We saw a metal detector. We had to throw the backpack on their belt, and the iPhone and the camera — on the nightstand. We went deeper — turnstiles to the left, a huge line straight ahead, and a departures board to the left. Nothing to be done, we got in line. While we stood there, the numbers on the board next to the name of the city "Bandırma", where we needed to go, suspiciously decreased. Igor (the navigator) figured, that it'd be nice to translate, but that was even unnecessary — it was already clear that the numbers showed the amount of available seats for a specific trip, and they boded us nothing good. And so it turned out — for the 18.30 ferry, which we really wanted to take to Bandırma, there were 3 tickets left, and then they completely vanished. We had to buy them for 20.00. The price — about 30 liras (10 lats), if I'm not lying — which is possible, because it slipped my mind. There was also, by the way, an option closer to my heart of buying tickets via the internet in advance, but it didn't get the majority's support.
Furthermore, the cashier obviously believed that he knew English, but I did not share this confidence of his — he gave us 5 tickets instead of 6. I generally by that time had already become confident in my knowledge of Turkish, and offered to speak to him in his barbarian dialect, but my suggestion didn't evoke enthusiasm from my accomplices. Nevertheless, with gestures and shouts of "altı bisiklet" ("6 bikes") we somehow explained to him what we needed. I apparently didn't know the word insan, meaning person, back then, or maybe I had already looked it up. A person in Turkish is also "adam", but saying that is completely weird to me — linguistic shock.
Once we bought the tickets, we decided to get a bite to eat. Here a certain difficulty arose. In my mind, a visit to a foreign country — is the fullest possible immersion into the culture and customs, including food and drinks. On the other hand, everyone has their own opinion on this matter — Maris, as the supply manager, had prudently grabbed more provisions from home. That's probably right if we were in the mountains or a forest, but a kilometer away from the center of Istanbul, why eat Latvian sandwiches? To me this makes no sense, especially considering that prices in Turkey are very humane indeed (more on them later).
Of course, you could say that by the seaport terminal there was only a fast-food joint similar to ours, but you have to start somewhere.
In the end, I bought a toasted sandwich with sausage and cheese for 4 liras (1.33 lats, less than $3). Here we already caught a whiff of the exotic — firstly, I saw the famous çay bardağı — the small beautiful glasses from which the Turks drink tea 30 portions a day. The Turks boil their tea rather than steeping it, and it usually tastes like Lipton — this isn't to my liking, I prefer weak and fragrant black tea, or various greens and oolongs. But not all expedition members think so — Igor Shchukin liked the tea. If you put some sugar in, Turkish tea can be considered okay, especially sometimes, when they don't try to over-steep it to the point of bitterness. Out in the provinces this happens more often than in Istanbul, but it very well may be that I'm biased.
Secondly, the sausage in the toast was spiced, and without pork. Igor Shchukin (the chef) later called the spice cilantro, but we're still not sure that's right. It even seems to me that they always have a mix of them in all their dishes, only the proportions vary.
We didn't sit around at the terminal for long — we went off to look for the miserable gas again. We didn't find it, but instead we were cunningly lured into a fish restaurant. Here's a relevant observation — there are 70 million people in Turkey, and everyone needs a job. Therefore, they aren't shy about shoving people wherever they can be squeezed in. So, special people lure you into restaurants and sometimes shops too. They do it nimbly and intrusively, but they don't grab your hands, which alone is already good news.
At the restaurant we ordered mullet for 10 liras (3 lats/$6) — I hope everyone knows the song? The dish was made and served simply — baked fish (maybe even on coals, that's par for the course for them) and vegetables. The time until the ferry's departure was already pressing, so we were a bit nervous. But everything worked out fine — and the fish, despite its simplicity, was delicious. Going by the recommendations, I would have eaten red mullet, but by that time I still didn't have my own personal money, only the communal funds. Counting them later is exhausting, and standing out from the collective, as usual, is tough. In principle, the mullet was also good, so to hell with it, the red mullet.
What else was amusing at the restaurant? They brought cushions for the chairs, with a checkered pattern on one side. The waiters-barkers spoke in a mix of Russian, Turkish, and English, and kind of seemed to think we were Lithuanians. One was constantly joking around that Lithuanians are - Mafia, Sicilia and all that :-)
While we were waiting for the main course, a boy also dragged out some cold appetizers. Now I regret that I never tried them, especially since the guidebooks recommend them. But back then I didn't have personal money, and enthusiasm also slightly fades by evening — you get tired, after all.
I think I'll wrap up this part, otherwise it's already bloated incredibly. The next one will be about the ferry to Bandırma, and if there's enough room — about arriving there too.