New Years

We were invited to go visit one of the downtown areas in Istanbul for the festivous occasion. I was excited to hear about it and very excited about the idea, but as soon as I mentioned it to some of my co-workers the bombs began dropping. DANGER DANGER DANGER!!!! Apparently Taksim, the area we were gonna visit, gets extremely crowded and chances of SOMETIHNG happening are extremely high. I've heard that from a few of my non Turkish co-workers and so naturally not being convinced by the gossips of others I went on the internet to do my own research, which resulted in nothing more but guided advices on how to best spend your new years in Istanbul, or the places to go and visit when in the area of Taksim. So once again I was back on the market asking around about what is up for the holidays and same story, but this time coming from the Turkish part of the population, which in the end was convincing enough to dissuade me from the trip across the continents. The most convincing part was the possibility of my wife being groped in a public and extremely crowded area. I can take care of myself and can handle my own problems but my wife being groped about wasn't just appealing enough for me. I guess the situation would be if she actually enjoyed being groped by strangers. Not the case however. So a house party with co-workers it is.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

Traveling

No stay in any place would be a good one without checking out more than that one city. During the first week of December, Turkey celebrates the holiday of Bayram, an Islamic holiday which carries an importance similar to that of Christmas in the Christian world.

During Bayram animals such as sheep and cows are sacrificed and the meat is shared with the poor people of the country. The origins of the tradition are written down in the Koran, and came from a man, whose name I don’t know, was asked to sacrifice his son in the name of God and when an angel showed up, or in the Koran may have been some other being, and told the man that sacrificing his own son was not necessary and that an animal would suffice, the man happily obliged.

For those asking themselves, “What the?” yes this story is the exact same story as that of a man written about in the Holy Bible.

So since the opportunity came knocking and a 9 day long holiday was just what the man prescribed, we decided to pack our bags and head out.

Bayram Travel

Be forewarned, when traveling by bus during Bayram. On any given day it is possible to just waltz into the Istanbul Otogar, main bus station, and choose to buy your tickets from one of the 164 odd vendors, without having to worry that you may not find anything. During Bayram the story is a bit more complicated.

Since it is a big national holiday and since Istanbul is Turkey’s biggest city, people tend to book their tickets months ahead of time. By the time we walked into the immense space of the bus station, which was around 6pm on a Saturday, the place was crowded with people sitting on their bags, eating food, loitering in front of the numerous ticket offices giving ,me an overall feeling that I may indeed have come too late to purchase tickets. We started off in a near frenzy nearly running from office to office trying to get a couple of tickets heading for the Southern coast of Turkey. The plan was to take the bus down to Antalia and go from there. It took us a half hour or so before we were approached by a man who said he knew where to find tickets. He made a phone call and made us run after him to a nearby office, which as it turned out, did indeed have tickets for sale.

Commissions and Scams

In a rush we stepped into the travel office and were sponsored by our rescuer who told us that his fee would be 10 YTL (Turkish Lira), which is approximately 5 Euro. I thought that in the moment of need and that without him we would have spent a really long time searching or possibly would have given up all together ten lira was a fair price for this little service.

The set of events that follow were a bit confusing to me at the moment of their occurance and I would like to convey them here with a similar sense of confusion.

The travel agent charged me 150 YTL for two one way tickets to Antalia.

Our temporary search agent took us inside the room and showed us the way upstairs, to a separate waiting room. We had 4 hours to wait before the departure and spending those 4 hours inside a possibly very smoky room was a rather unappealing concept, that and we were hungry as hell. So I declined, to which he responded with an interesting gesture of hand which reminded me of a really long beard. That meant it was time to pay up.

At that moment I stopped and stared, because I was pretty sure that the travel agent had already included our man’s 10 YTL finders price in our 150 YTL ticket price. It took me a couple of seconds before the veil of stupification subsided. After my vision returned to focus I saw the same man standing in front of me with an expectant look on his face. I dag out the 10 YTL and handed it over to him. Today I really believe he had thrown some spell over me.

He hurried out of the office and back into the dimly illuminated bus station. We decided to follow and get some food in one of the restaurants. But something was eating at the back of my mind, a feeling that we had been swindled. I was fairly certain that the travel agent had said the price for the tickets was 70 YTL/ person, which was 10 YTL more than what I had paid. So one of them dudes had managed to pull a scam on our unexperienced asses. I checked the tickets, which clearly had a price of 70YTL printed on them, which meant that I just had paid 20YTL above the agreed price.

First we went to eat, no use in worrying about things on an empty stomach. Next we headed down to the travel agent. He said that the tickets were indeed 70YTL and that the additional 10 YTL were for the Temporary Agent, whom I had given another 10 YTL due to my being as gullible as the next best tourist.

I respect a man making a 10YTL profit of other peoples time in need, but 20 YTL for a 3 minute walk and a 5 minute talk was simply too much.

My wife kept telling me to let it go and not make any troubles, but the idea of being a sucker once again was eating away in me and there was no way I was going to let it go.

We marched right back to the place where the man found us. Walking up the busy sidewalk, people sitting, standing, smoking, talking, drinking Turkish tea, carrying luggage, laughing, watching, advertising, bargaining and just being submerged in the overall chaos of the moment I saw the man walking towards me carrying a suitcase and another older man following close on his heels. I saw his face and I could tell that he saw mine because his expression instantaneously took on that look of someone who had not expected to get caught and now suddenly was facing the pursuers.

I stopped him mid stride, and simply told him to give me back my 10YTL, to which he responded in a raised and excited voice asking “What money!” I guess it would have been more difficult for me to prove his guilt had he remained calm. The man whose suitcase our scam artists was carrying happened to speak pretty good English and translated the whole episode to him.

I guess the 10YTL wasn’t worth all the money he could make in as well as his reputation as a businessman, which is why he finally after a rather heated 10minute discussion asked me what it is that I wanted. I told him I wanted my 10lira back, to which he pulled out his bundle of cash and handed over the note. I thanked both him and the man who translated and span around on my heal, away from them. I AINT NO SUCCA!!!! 1 for Jacek, dozens more to come for the Turkish business men....

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

Panorama

CLICK TO ENLARGE

My first panoramic shot, plastered together from 5 separate shots. 50mm lese and a 1.8 apperature, which resulted in the extensive lense vgnetting through the picture. Take and learn I guess. Either way. This is the European shore as seen from the Asian shore. On the left you get a glimpse of the Bosphorous bridge connecting the European side with the Asian side of Istanbul. This was the first bridge built to connect the two shores and apparently the traffic was so high that it paid for itself within a decade. There is another bridge further up the straight but it is a bit of a distance away so as you can immagine, in a city of 11 million inhabitants and only two bridges, not counting the car ferry, the traffic jam's a bit nutty, well all the time really.

It's the 26th of November and for the past two days the temperature was averaging at 17 degrees Celcius.


If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

The Gym

In an attempt to keep my overall physical performance and appearance I went out in search of fitness facilities and managed to find two of them. One is a brisk ten minutes walk to my house, the other is a bit farther away but still a distance that could be classified as reasonable in walking terms. Here are my experiences

Gym #1

The gentlemen behind the desk were very kind and polite. Upon finding out that the only way to communicate was English, the called one of their English speaking staff who greeted us very friendly, shook hands and took us on a round tour of the facilities. Once back at the registration counter we were shown a schedule and our guide explained to us the different services offered at the gym ranging from Pilates to Aikido classes. Up until this point prices were still not mentioned. There was a shuffling of feet and low voiced exchange of words between the three men before the final number was given. 300lira for three months per person provided we I paid in cash. The fees tend to be a bit higher if paid by credit. At the time of writing this 100lira was $79 Canadian. This is for a non-world class gym.

Gym #2

Closer to my apartment and a bit smaller than the one written about earlier. A man explained and a girl translated. Once again I was shown a schedule with a listing of various activities, Pilates, Aikido etc. and an explanation that if I signed up for 6 months I would get the next 6 months free as a bonus. Not until I actually asked for the pen and started to write down the prices was I able to get a more concise answer about the membership fees, which were

6 months ---- 785 lira, that would include the bonus 6 months of free membership

3 months ---- 330 lira by cash / 375 lira by credit

1 month ------ 120 lira by cash / 140 lira by credit

1 day pass ----20 lira which translates roughly to $15 Canadian

I’m pretty sure that unless the gym is located in front of a beach and has the next Arnold Schwarzenegger working out next to me, I will not be dropping $15 just to get into that gym for a day.

Yes, fitness clubs in Turkey are expencive.

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

Apartments

We stayed four nights in a place at Koza Mustafafasa, which is located between the Airport and the Aksaray station. The apartment was a 3+1, meaning a three bedroom and a livingroom apartment and was in the range of 780lira/month. The area is a central one for its surroundings, with a bunch of little shops, stores and restaurants of all kinds. Every living necessity can be met in that neighbourhood.
We met our first real estate agent on the recommendation of my current employer. You’d figure that would be a solid lead. Not so unfortunately. The older gentleman was quick to give us high prices and not so quick to show any of the apartments around the neighbourhood. It took us a whole two days to see one apartment. We were to meet him a day after our initial meeting to see another place but that was cancelled and postponed onto another day. Luckily our resourcefulness hadn’t abandoned us just yet and on the way home we stopped randomly at a real estate office we happened to be passing. During the next hour and a half we were taken to 3 different apartments in a car, which didn’t happen with the first real estate agent, and saw apartments ranging from 900 to 750 lira.
We signed a contract the next day. Even though the apartment rent was initially pitched to us as being 700 YTL (lira), we ended up signing up for 750YTL since that apparently was already a bargain. The economy isn’t at its best at the moment, so we were told, and the original rent of 950YTL/month was sliced down to 750YTL/month.
Canada has its security deposit, which usually consists of a one or two month’s rent advance. In Korea owners demand security deposits in the round amounts of between $2500 up $80,000, in which case the rent is much diminished or even completely removed and all one has to worry about paying are the utilities. A very convenient system if you have a decent sum saved up. Turkey compares to Canada in its security deposit arrangements. Ours was a one month’s advance.
There is also the real estate agent fee, which tends to be from 12% and up, of a year’s rent on the rented apartment. In our case that would have been 750YTL.
750 x 12 = 9000
9000 x 12 = ........you get the picture
We did, however, manage to bargain that down to 650YTL. The man was either feeling generous towards us or he made sure that the caretaker here would profit on every step off of our ignorance and a lack in the Turkish language. I guess we’ll never know.
One of the good things that came from this was, besides us getting our own place, was getting to know one of the boys working at real estate office. Firat 22 was the one who took us to see the apartments and came over a couple of days later with a bottle of Turkish Vodka and Redbull, the mix to drink here in the Nightclubs of Istanbul, and we had a merry little evening of trying to understand one another with the minimal of Turkish and English.


If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

My name is Jacek and I am an adventure junky.

Why this blog?

Many may and in fact have already asked me, “Why Turkey?”. “Why not”, is the instinctive answer I give them. Of course there is more to my decision than just the why not. I could go into details of historical descriptions and geographical destinations but that is not what this blog is about, or at least not entirely. I’ve had my minimal share of moving about this globe and when I really sit down and think about it, that is really what drives me. Being able to move to a part of the world and become one, to some extent, with the country of my new residence. I have been a tourist before, many times, but as much fun as tourism is, it does not provide the same experiences as settling in one place for at least a short while. So this is what my aim in this blog is, to share my experiences living in this old city of Istanbul and hopefully providing some helpful info to those thinking about coming to this city in hope of making a living, during their initial stages of settlement.

If you happen to have some questions, other than what written here, please feel free to drop me a line and I will answer your query as best as I can.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride. For all you know it could be short and turbulent.

First days

We touched ground at the Attaturk International Airport at 5am on Monday the 27^th. Subways start running at around 5:30am and so we had some time to kill before loading our 5 bags onto the tube. A shuttle to Sultanahmed, which is where the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia are, on that day was 20lira, or an approximate 10Euro per person. The subway is 1.4 lira, as is most of the transportation, not including taxies into the equation.

The subway line took us to the final station at Aksaray, where we had the option of changing onto a tramway, or a bus and to continue our cheap line of transport for another 1.4 lira per person. Taking into account the volume of people on these local transports and the bulk of our baggage, we decided to take a taxi, which was 7.85lira to our final destination at Sultanahmed.

Jetlagged we checked into one of the many accommodations around the area. If you’re curious about where to go and how much to pay, check the Turkey Lonely Planet guide book. Prices seem to be fluctuating, especially in the recent past, but in essence you can find accommodations starting as cheap as 10 euro for a dorm bed to as high as 150euro, or more, for a hotel room.

It’s very easy to get tangled up in the mess of conversion. Trying to figure out how much things would have cost back home as compared to here is a waste of time, as well as a sure way to confuse the exchange rates right out of you. When you buy things in lira, which is always a better option than paying in Euro or US dollars, keep this simple principle in mind: Cheaper is better!, HAHA!!! No really. I’m serious.

Buying things.

As I had visited Istanbul and some parts of Turkey on a previous occasion, I had some general sense of directions and where things were in the city, at least around the Bosphorous straight area. The different names of the areas of the city, on both the European as well as the Asian side, remained a mystery since many of the names sound similar. Getting a map was a good idea. A local kiosk guy wanted 7lira for a city map, which seemed a bit high to me so I chose not to get it. I told him I’d get it tomorrow, to which he responded by saying that US dollars or Euro were ok. Seeing my unwillingness to drop the coin, he proceeded to drop his price. In the end all he wanted were 2 Euro, which at the time of writing were equivalent to 3.86 lira. (1.93 lira/euro, exchange rate).

Bargaining is not only done at the Grand Bazaar it would seem.

Phones and the internet

The hook up of phone lines in an apartment is a whole new ordeal in itself. In order to get a line set up one has to first find the local Telecom office. Every major neighbourhood has one and that’s the one you have to go to. Most people will be completely clueless as to where the actual office is so perseverance is the key word if you want to find it and find it you must since the only way you get a phone is if you pay them a visit in person with your apartment contract and a passport. With some Turkish translation the process takes roughly between 1 and 3 days. If you’re lucky, the desk person will let you know the exact day on which you can expect the technician to show up. Don’t expect to know the exact time though and be prepared to wait at home on that day.

There are several options in the phone hook up department. You can have a phone on which you receive phone calls only, that goes for both local and international, or you can have your regular connection allowing you to receive phone calls as well as to make them. Don’t rush at the office and make sure you are aware of what connection you are choosing since to make any changes requires another trip to the Telecom office.

Internet

Internet is a separate affair and it does not get connected at the same time as the phone line. Once you have your phone line set up, you need to trek back up to the phone company and make another application for the internet. We were hoping to use a second hand modem we had from an acquaintance, which turned out to be a huge mistake. Two weeks later we still had no access to the internet. Turk Telecom is not a very customer friendly organisation. Upon sign up we opted out of getting another modem and having to pay extra money for it since we already had one. Our modem didn’t work and so I went down to the company to get a modem. The first visit was completely unsuccessful doe to a lack of a translator. I finally had someone write out in Turkish, exactly what I wanted to happen, which was a great help. Only problem was that I couldn’t simply receive a modem. My subscription is a standard one and as such I am not entitled to a modem. I asked if I could simply change, upgrade, my subscription and pay for the modem, to which the phone operator replied in a negative. Reason being that in order to get a modem I would have to sign up for a different account, but in order to do that I would also have to wait until the 1^st of a month, since the sign up and cancelation dates are important for the company I was told. So I was left with two options. Waiting out till the end of the month without the internet, cancelling the account on the first of December and opening up a new account that would provide a modem, which would have been a waste of 50lira approx. 25Euro. The other option was buying a new modem, which is what I did. 90lira, 45Euor and the promise of a technician to come in, in order to change the phone connection from only incoming to incoming and outgoing phone calls and hopefully setting up the internet connection, which despite the presence of a new modem, is still not working.

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.