Istanbul was Constantinople... long time gone...
So, we've finally arrived to the land of fez hats, nagylars and mustaches. It's really amazing to see how thick and fluffy the stachios can get. Hypnotizing.
After a loooooooong and annoying trainride (about 19 hours on plastic-covered seats with only enough room for one of us to sleep) through the night from Bucharest to Istanbul (annoying 'cause every freakin' time we'd approach a border, we had a minimum of 3 sets of officials coming, inspecting luggage, inspecting tickets, inspecting passports... transport police, customs officers, border police... you name it, they were there. As you can imagine, this gave us little time to rest because we were busy showing our passports, pointing to our luggage or showing our train tickets!).... ehm, got a little sidetracked there. I'm calm, I'm relaxed. Anyways, we arrived today, Sunday. The smell of spice is in the air, with a hint of urine and filth (much better than just urine and filth, like in Bucharest). We went off to the nearest internet café to try and figure out the exchange rate. We sort of know it but it's hard work getting used to it, too many zeros. For example, an hour on this computer is 2,000,000 turkish lira.
After getting our bearings we set off to find a taxi that would take us to our Chill-out Café hostel. The driver was a lived-out man, with a HUGE belly, smoking, big, ungroomed mustache, hadn't shaved in days. Smelled of sour cigarettes and sweat. Lovely. He continued to smoke while we were in the car and when I rolled down the back seat window he objected profusely (I pretended not to understand Turkish, which I don't really, but I knew what he was saying) but he was rudely interrupted when one of the competitors tried to ram into the side of our taxi. They both stopped (in the middle of the road, just before the entrance of a tunnel!!!!) and started shouting and I mean SHOUTING! Jolly nice to express oneself. I just love it when road rage hits my taxi drivers. But we survived, I with the help from my cutie-pie.
We had to walk a bit to find the hostel and on the way we saw Starbucks. I needed a coffee so off we went. I had also had my share of disgusting toilets on the train. I thoroughly enjoyed the Western feel of a crispy-clean Starbucks toiletseat on my butt, the air smelling of too much airfreshener. It burned the back of my throat but I didn't care. They provided toiletpaper! I was in toilet heaven! Sometimes, globalisation can really be a ray of light in a world of dirty toilets.
So, we finally found the hostel, VERY chilled-out, just like the name suggested. We even have our own room, which is not what we booked, but never mind, better for us! It's nice to get a bit of privacy. I started looking for the toilet... and found it just across the hall. It's turkish. Very turkish. It's a hole-in-the-ground-turkish. The kind of turkish that has been here for centuries. Björg not happy. Björg no like filthy toilet where you have to squat and hold on to the butt-cleaning water tap to prevent her from falling in. It's tradition to rinse off your butt afterwards with water from a jug (left hand, of course!!) Poor Abdul, having to deal with my toilet-whining. But if there's one thing I REALLY appreciate about our part of the world, it's the toilets. And the toilet paper they provide. They don't really do that here, or in Romania. It's BYO.
The food here is amazing. We are going to try EVERYTHING. Yummy!
I could go on and on about what we have experienced in the last 24 hours or so, but I would just be rambling.
Oh, one more thing, I managed to fiddle with the computer here so that I can get an Icelandic key board! This Linux system is pretty good! Ég get skrifað á íslensku, alveg eins og ég vil! Það er sko brilliant! Híhíhí! Vona að allir hafi það gott í hitanum heima og ég læt heyra meira frá okkur fljótlega. Kyss og knús frá okkur. Bæjó!
After a loooooooong and annoying trainride (about 19 hours on plastic-covered seats with only enough room for one of us to sleep) through the night from Bucharest to Istanbul (annoying 'cause every freakin' time we'd approach a border, we had a minimum of 3 sets of officials coming, inspecting luggage, inspecting tickets, inspecting passports... transport police, customs officers, border police... you name it, they were there. As you can imagine, this gave us little time to rest because we were busy showing our passports, pointing to our luggage or showing our train tickets!).... ehm, got a little sidetracked there. I'm calm, I'm relaxed. Anyways, we arrived today, Sunday. The smell of spice is in the air, with a hint of urine and filth (much better than just urine and filth, like in Bucharest). We went off to the nearest internet café to try and figure out the exchange rate. We sort of know it but it's hard work getting used to it, too many zeros. For example, an hour on this computer is 2,000,000 turkish lira.
After getting our bearings we set off to find a taxi that would take us to our Chill-out Café hostel. The driver was a lived-out man, with a HUGE belly, smoking, big, ungroomed mustache, hadn't shaved in days. Smelled of sour cigarettes and sweat. Lovely. He continued to smoke while we were in the car and when I rolled down the back seat window he objected profusely (I pretended not to understand Turkish, which I don't really, but I knew what he was saying) but he was rudely interrupted when one of the competitors tried to ram into the side of our taxi. They both stopped (in the middle of the road, just before the entrance of a tunnel!!!!) and started shouting and I mean SHOUTING! Jolly nice to express oneself. I just love it when road rage hits my taxi drivers. But we survived, I with the help from my cutie-pie.
We had to walk a bit to find the hostel and on the way we saw Starbucks. I needed a coffee so off we went. I had also had my share of disgusting toilets on the train. I thoroughly enjoyed the Western feel of a crispy-clean Starbucks toiletseat on my butt, the air smelling of too much airfreshener. It burned the back of my throat but I didn't care. They provided toiletpaper! I was in toilet heaven! Sometimes, globalisation can really be a ray of light in a world of dirty toilets.
So, we finally found the hostel, VERY chilled-out, just like the name suggested. We even have our own room, which is not what we booked, but never mind, better for us! It's nice to get a bit of privacy. I started looking for the toilet... and found it just across the hall. It's turkish. Very turkish. It's a hole-in-the-ground-turkish. The kind of turkish that has been here for centuries. Björg not happy. Björg no like filthy toilet where you have to squat and hold on to the butt-cleaning water tap to prevent her from falling in. It's tradition to rinse off your butt afterwards with water from a jug (left hand, of course!!) Poor Abdul, having to deal with my toilet-whining. But if there's one thing I REALLY appreciate about our part of the world, it's the toilets. And the toilet paper they provide. They don't really do that here, or in Romania. It's BYO.
The food here is amazing. We are going to try EVERYTHING. Yummy!
I could go on and on about what we have experienced in the last 24 hours or so, but I would just be rambling.
Oh, one more thing, I managed to fiddle with the computer here so that I can get an Icelandic key board! This Linux system is pretty good! Ég get skrifað á íslensku, alveg eins og ég vil! Það er sko brilliant! Híhíhí! Vona að allir hafi það gott í hitanum heima og ég læt heyra meira frá okkur fljótlega. Kyss og knús frá okkur. Bæjó!
posted by Björg at 11:35 f.h.
2 Comments:
Bjogga, you didn't mention the advertısements for whores that come to your hotel room in Bucharest ın sets of 2, lube their fingers and proceed to insert them into one's cornhole to massage the prostrate until climax. Now I have seen a lot of whore ads in my lıfe (errr) but İ must admit this was one of the more original one's.
How I envy you of your very tasty toilett :-) I remember similar happy occations in Morocco and Italy, where the danger of falling in was alwas looming, especially in Italy, when very drunk on my graduation trip. Remember.... If you want to smuggle anything, put it inside a bag og Always Ultra plus with wings. Custom officers, particularily in this part of the world, seem to get all flushed if they find something like that. Of course you could be unlucky and get a female customs officer...........
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