Corinne Crawford
I really enjoyed my time in Plovdiv and would visit there again but wouldn’t be in a hurry to return to Sofia. The night of my train trip to Istanbul, I took a taxi to the train station and boarded my train at 9:45pm.
My assigned cabin was the first one after the doors and unfortunately just a few doors down from the one bathroom on the whole carriage. This became a problem because by the last third of the trip, the smell from the bathroom, which was just a squat toilet, became a bit overpowering. For the last hour or so, I had to fashion a nose covering from my sleeping eye mask to limit the smell. Other than that, the cabin and bed were comfortable and private.
I got a few hours of sleep before we stopped at the border of Turkey at about 1am. The train porter came through and knocked on all of our doors, waking us up as we would have to get off the train with all of our luggage to go through immigration. I hauled my stuff out to the lonely, isolated border train station and stood in line to wait my turn to show my passport and put my luggage through the scanner. When it was my turn, I handed over my passport and they asked to see my visa. Uh oh, I did not do enough research apparently and failed to realize that I need to apply and pay for a visa in advance electronically. The officer was quite annoyed with me in Turkish with just a little English and I tried to explain that I didn’t know I needed one- I was that obnoxious American who thought I could just waltz into a country, but in my defense, in most cases, I can. I had very little cell service but I tried to pull up the proper website on my phone and as each page loaded slowly and I panic- filled out my application and put in my payment information, everyone else was getting back on the train. I waited as I watched the loading bar on each page wondering if the train would leave me if I didn’t finish in time. Finally, finally, it loaded and my credit card was accepted and I was able to show the officer my email confirmation and I quickly took my luggage to the scanner and hurried back on the train as everyone else was already boarded and waiting on me. To be woken up in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out what I was supposed to do while Turkish officials are glaring at me and harshly asking me why I didn’t do this before, I had a panic high as I tried to settle back to sleep for the remaining 4 hours until I reached the station outside of Istanbul.
I finally did sleep a bit and arrived at the station about 7:30am. I had to then figure out how to get what is called an Istanbulkart, the transportation card that you scan in order to pay for and ride any of the public transportation modes in the city and then found my way to the metro train which would take me in closer to my apartment in Sultanahmet, a neighborhood in the old town of Istanbul on one of the European sides. I then tried to get a taxi to go the rest of the way to my apartment but no one would stop for me. Finally, a taxi stopped and when I asked how much to get to my address, he quoted me a ridiculous amount. It should have been half of that but what could I do? I paid the extortion and was deposited in front of my apartment at about 8:45am. The owner of the aparthotel was waiting for me as I told him I would be coming early because I figured my room would not be ready and I was going to leave my bags there and go find a café to eat and relax until my room was ready. He saw how tired I was and even though my particular room was not ready yet, he offered to let me sleep on the bed in another apartment until my room was ready at around noon. I gratefully took him up on the offer and slept for the next 2 hours until my room was ready. I was then shown to my room, which was on the 3rd floor with only the roof top terrace above me. It was on the small side but had a nice bed, a separate small kitchenette area, bathroom and small balcony. The only table however was out on the balcony so I did a quick bit of rearranging and brought the table inside so I would have a place to work and eat.
I had booked an evening walking tour for that night as I thought it would be a good way for me to remember how to get around the city, but later realized that the tour was on the other side of the bridge. I meant to have a walking tour of the Sultanahment side, the older side where I was staying.
No matter, it would still be good to get an overview of some areas on the other side. My plan was to find a place to have some dinner on my way to the meeting point near Taksim Square. As I was walking to get to the tram to the other side and up to Taksim Square, I was approached by a young man asking if I needed any help. I was not surprised by this as I remember from last time that this exact thing happened in almost the same place. This was my second time in Istanbul. I first visited with my friend Mike 11 years ago and I loved the city and the culture and the people and the food so much that I always vowed to return. Anyway, this sort of thing is very common for several reasons. First and foremost, locals that own shops of various kinds are always on the lookout for a customer. Second, I have always found that the Turkish people are so friendly and kind and willing to help. And lastly, Turkish men are always going to shoot their shot. They take rejection well, but they are going to try. So this nice young man, who definitely had a carpet shop, walked me to the tram station but as we arrived to the station, it was clear that there was a problem. There was a demonstration of support for the Palestinian people and the demonstrators were blocking the tram tracks. So I wasn’t getting on the tram at that station. So Dewran walked me to the next station and because everyone was now trying to get on the tram there, it was packed, so we decided to keep going. Dewran actually walked me the entire way up to Taksim Square, which was about a 35-45 minutes walk. He was good company and he invited me to have breakfast at his family’s shop the next morning which wasn’t too far from my apartment. I made to sure to tell him that there was no chance of me buying a carpet so that he didn’t waste time if his only goal was to sell me a carpet. He said that his offer was genuine as a gesture of hospitality so I agreed to stop by the shop at 9:30am the next morning. I still hadn’t gotten anything to eat and I had about 35 minutes before my tour would start so I just found one of the many food stands and had a typical meat wrap that was delicious. I then waited just a bit more to meet my host for the tour. I didn’t realize that I was going to be the only one on the tour so when the guide showed up, we got on the way.
To be honest, we pretty much walked the exact same route I had walked with Dewran on the way there but I got just a bit more information on some history and architecture but I probably could have skipped it. By the time the tour was done, I was exhausted and went right to sleep in my apartment.
