2004-03-14
So if you've a date in Constantinople | She'll be waiting in Istanbul.

8:17 p.m.

We had to catch a train from Strasbourg to Mulhouse at 5:20 AM. Then, we had to take an expensive taxi from the train station to the airport. We landed in Istanbul around 3ish, after heading west for a stop in Lyon. We had to purchase a visa to enter the country. Yuck. But cool-looking. Our tour company picked us up and dropped us off at a three-star hotel which was nice enough but did leave something to be desired. Such as a shower that you could actually turn around in.

We walked around a little bit and visited The Fatih Mosque. We had to take our shoes off and women had to wear head scarves, but Kelly and I put our hoods up and that seemed to be acceptable.

We had dinner at a nice restaurant and it was pretty cheap, although their currency had a crazy inflation rate so everything is in hundred-thousands and millions. Our dinner, for example, cost 28 million Turkish Lira. Big spenders! (That works out to 28 Canadian dollars, almost exactly.)

Nick was excited because he found an internet cafe that cost 1 million TL per hour.

The next day, we walked around, got lost, and finally figured things out and visted the Grand Bazaar (world's largest covered bazaar), the Aya Sofia, and the Blue Mosque. They were all really awesome. I bought a tea set at the Grand Bazaar for 13 Euros thanks to Nick and Mark who helped me talk the guy down from 40 Euros.

That night, the four of us went to a Turkish Bath and had the massage and the bath. It was definitely a new experience for me. We'll leave it at that except to say that women with massive modesty issues should definitely not go.

Saturday, we rented a car with plans to first visit Troy, but upon discovering that we would drive four hours to see a giant plastic horse and not much else, changed plans to try and add Greece and Bulgaria to our list of countries, and maybe add Asia to our list of continents (we were staying in the European part of Istanbul). However, it turned out to be the "most expensive road trip to nowhere," as Kelly said, because none of the objectives were accomplished.

Almost immediately, we discovered two things: 1) the car was making funny noises and 2) it ate gas like you wouldn't believe. Despite this, we decided to continue, unsure of whether we would actually make it back or not.

First, we tried the Greek border. They turned us away because we didn't have the proper insurance papers. That's what they said, but Nick and Mark thought that maybe the border guard was being a jerk and just didn't want to let us through, so we decided to try Bulgaria. (Note: the border was guarded by a man with an autmatic rifle. Very comforting.)

Bulgaria. Well. We drove up to the border, and after looking at our rental paper, the police guy stamped our passports with exit stamps, so we were "officially" (more or less) out of Turkey and in no-man's-land. Another line, and it turned out that there was no way we were going to get all the way through because we didn't have the proper insurance papers. So, we made it within sight of the Bulgarian border and then had to turn around.

That's when the fun really started.

We thought that maybe since we never made it into Bulgaria, we wouldn't have too much trouble getting back into Turkey. Well, we thought wrong. After trying to find someone who spoke English, French, or even Russian, Kelly came to our rescue by tracking down probably the only person in the entire area who spoke English, and she actually spoke it quite well, and was extremely friendly and helpful. She told us what to do, paved the way for us by talking to the right people, and the end of it was that after about four hours, we managed to get back into Turkey and were on our way back to Istanbul, without having accomplished anything. Mark gave the girl a Canadian flag pin because we didn't have anything else to give her and we wanted to do something since she'd been so wonderful.

We made it back, turned in the car, and then hung out in the hotel room and played card games, before going to bed with plans to sleep in.

So much for that. We were woken up in the middle of the night (3:30 AM) by the front desk calling and when we didn't respond, they came up and banged on the doors. Turns out that while we thought our flight was at 6 PM, it was really 6 AM. It was really great that they were so concerned about us that they came and got us (we managed to pack and get ready in <5 minutes), but at first when we didn't know what was going on, Kelly and I were pretty freaked out.

It ended up working out and we managed to catch our plane and were back in Strasbourg by 11:30 AM. What a trip! I now have three stamps from Turkey: 1 entry stamp, and two exit stamps, one of which has a "Canceled" stamp on top of it. How many people can say that?

Today, I haven't done a whole lot. There was a Chocolate Festival going on this weekend which Mark, Brooke, Ruey, and I went to. It was really good, but I ate far too much chocolate.

So, what did y'all do this weekend? Bet it wasn't as crazy as mine!!!

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