Wow what a day this has been. Up early in anticipation, well probably jet lag, and off to get coffee. We locked up and truged down the 68 steps to the street being careful stepping out to avoid any cars. Certainly not “traffic” but the occasional car does come through. Our two favorite very local places were closed. We were not sure if it was just too early or if Italian Independence Day was the issue. We decided to walk a new area and headed off when I realized I did not have our camera. We had a heated discussion about the merits of getting the camera vs just going on (really not about merit at all) and finally realized we had our phones. Problem solved.
Our walk took us to new ruins along the banks of the River Tiber. Probably very ancient things as the Largo Argentina was not that far up-river. We took some pretty interesting photos (or so we think see our photo album) and headed back for coffee. The local restaurant was open. We had coffee there waiting for Rosie when we first arrived at the apartment. The next door espresso shop was still closed. Do we go with closure or go with a new place we just found down the street. We went with the new shop “just to see” and were disappointed. Espresso in barely heated milk does not a cappuccino make.
In any event to be sure to catch our 2:50 flight, we took the #8 tram to Trastevere Station around am and arrived at the station about 15 minutes before the train to Fuimincino Aeroperto. Perfect, though I had some difficulty validating the tickets. Buying tickets at the kiosk is easy, figuring out how to use the validation machine: not so easy. Luigi, the guy who knows every thin at the station, showed us how after Ellen asked for help. I needed help. So ask Luigi if you cannot figure out how to validate a ticket. My second issue, I purchased tickets for the 10:52 train and we took the 10:15 train. Again that proved not to be a problem.
The train ride was quick. We knew our way around the airport, knew to go to terminal 3 for Pegasus Air, and found them with no difficulty, but that was the ticketing desk. The boarding desk did not open until noon. By now it was am.
To make up for our earlier coffee disaster, we ordered coffee at Chef Express SPA buffet at the airport. I had a cappuccino dopio machiado and Ellen had a marcchino and we shared bruchetta. It was fabulous and only $8e. Try getting anything at SFO for $8.00.
After our late breakfast we loitered until 12, then checked our luggage and got boarding passes. To our surprise, Pegasus had moved us to the exit isle (a very good thing), but that required that we check all but one carry on each (a bad thing), and we had an extra bag (an expensive thing), but I had anticipated this and paid for the extra bag (good), but we could only take one carry on each so we opted to take our backpacks and checked three of our bags (crap). To top this off, Ellen lost her boarding pass between the ticket counter and going through security. We panicked, then realized it’s no big deal. We were told we could have another boarding pass printed at the gate ahead of boarding.
Aside from arriving hours early, the flight to Istanbul was great. We were concerned that our luggage might go missing and tried not to think about that much. The trip went by quickly and we found ourselves going through customs. Planning ahead, I had an e-visa for Turkey printed up before we left and again that went through without a hitch. Better still after picking up our luggage, which did not go AWOL, and walking through the electric exit doors, there was a Sun Transfers.com representative standing smack in front of us with a placard reading Leavitt Kane. We were home free. The most iffy leg of our trip was done. We were golden. Yay.
We had a van to ourselves. Our driver was very personable, talkative, and attentive. He avoided as much of the rush hour traffic as he could and we made good time getting to Beyoglu (pronounced “be Yo lu”). So far this went without a hitch. Istanbul is a small town of twenty million people. The drivers are like a mix of Italians on steroids and new drivers who will stop on the freeway to backup if they missed a turn. This is driving, as an adventure.
We went through the “Asian” part of Istanbul, then headed to the “European” side, across a bridge. As we turned up the hill toward our flat, I heard the evening call to prayer start up “right there”, just over my shoulder and it was LOUD. No problem I thought, we’ll be headed up the hill and “far far away”. Wrong! We went perhaps 100 meters up the hill, turned right, and stopped. “We’re here. Let me help you with your bags.” What?? Humm. Different. Crap. This will be interesting. Where’s Soner who’s to meet us. WTF have we gotten ourselves into. All went through my mind in an instant. All screaming for attention. If I was uncertain, Ellen was dumb founded.
We got out of the van with our bags and headed to #18. We could not FIND #18. There was no number 18 marked on the street. Humm, a scam? You pay ahead and find you’ve arrived at nothing? I had an unsettling feeling about this added to the screaming in my head, WTF. Compounding all this, the road was narrow, dirty, closed in, and clearly in the Muslim section of town, that call to prayer was just down the block. All the time I’m thinking, “What have I gotten us into” and I can see from Ellen’s look that she’s thinking the same thing. She’s going to kill me!
Culture Shock? Oh Yeah.
After standing around with nobody making an appearance, our driver looked our reservation up, called the flat manager, and had him meet us outside. Moments later a friendly talkative fellow came out to take us up to our room. He asked our name, and Ellen said “Ellen”. He looked puzzled and said, “Sonia, you’re German?”. “No, were from America. Ellen”. We had our bags inside the security door but were at the wrong building! Was there a “right” building?
Our driver re-examined our reservation, realized that he had grabbed the wrong reservation based on the street name (there was a German couple arriving across the street at the same time), called the correct guy and we were ushered up to the 4th floor of the correct building.
Understand that from the outside, this building looks like a dump, on a street that looks like a dump and looks downright scary coming from America. Up four flights of stairs and the door opened onto a modest, attractive, clean, and fully functional flat. We had arrived.
Our first issue was getting drinking water. It is recommended that you not drink the tap water. After our experience in Loreto in February, we take this seriously. We worked our way down the four flights of narrow stairs in search of the local SOK market and water and beer. The fellow who was the German couple’s manager was still outside (the Germans had not yet arrived) and told us how to find the SOK market. Ellen has no problem asking anyone for/about anything. It is good that she asked as I would have headed in the opposite direction.
Now understand that given the area we were venturing into, Ellen was wearing a hoodie AND a scarf to cover her blond hair. We were definitely not sure about anything.
We were told that there was the SOK and a French style market just across the street, but that they might be closed by now. It was 10PM, a very long travel day. The directions to the SOK were simple enough and off we went. We had not gone far when I realized we had not exchanged any Euro for Turkish Lire. Oh Crap. The merchants would eat us alive. Still off we went. We can deal with some bargaining and even if not we needed water (and beer).
We crossed under a freeway bridge, up a stairway, and up a few streets to a “busy street’ where we turned left. We found both SOK and the French market closed. I figured “Oh, what the hell. We’ll let a merchant take us and buy with a $50e note. One euro is roughly 3 Turkish Lire; $50e is a lot of money. The first merchant we found who had both beer and gallon water jugs, did not speak nor understand English. He did take one look at the $50e and said no and a bunch of other unintelligible words to the effect that he only takes $10 TL (I gleaned this from the 10 he waved at us). Not speaking nor understanding English is rather common in Istanbul!
A fellow who did understand a very few words of English and spoke less, explained that there was a currency change house 100 meters away, back up the hill and left. Again off we went.
The streets we had been on thus far had the occasional passer by and were uniformly dingy even derelict. Up another 100 meters we found a very busy street. It was downright crowded, well lit, and abuzz with conversation and laughter from street side bistros. We had found our “busy street”. More significantly, we found other like people. Blond women in public having fun. This was a bubbling neighborhood with a mix of locals and tourists from all over the world. I heard Russian, French, German, Italian, English, British, and those were the languages I recognized. Visions of being abducted by some lunatic because of Ellen’s blond hair vanished in a puff of, “Wow, this will be fun”.
I had visions of the two of us huddled in our flat, reading for three days and not daring to go out. That fear dropped away in the face of a wonderfully different vibrant human experience. The sights, sounds, and smells. Oh the smells. There were typical pubs, restaurants, vendors selling types of Kabob to be cooked while you wait. There was a fresh vegetable booth, fish booths, bakeries, it went on and on and it was crowded. And this was just one or two streets. It looked to go on forever.
Ellen put her scarf away and dropped her hood. Finally we both realized we had arrived. And this was not the bazaar, this was just one small part of Beyoglu (pronounced “be YO lu” with a silent “g” )
The money exchange was closed, but an ATM machine gave us Turkish Lire. We went home with bread, beer, water, and a rich and scrumptious desert.
Life is indeed an adventure: La Dolce Vita!
With Italian, even if I don’t understand what’s being said, I can still recognize individual words and often noun, adjective, verb, etc. With Turkish, there is no way; none.
Tomorrow will be very interesting. I can’t wait….
Ron