Things that no one tells you about traveling to Istanbul

I admit, I have a travel bug that starts itching every 6 months or so, urging me to get on a plane to a new destination for a little adventure, discovery, culture, and excitement.

After London, Spain, London again, came Istanbul, the land of Mosques, Palaces, Islands, and the Bosphorus.

Istanbul is one big haven for those who enjoy museums, historical monuments, nature, the sea, shopping, and food… you name it, Istanbul has it! Our city tour included two cruises, one around the Bosphosus strait and another to the Prince’s Island (Turkish: BUYUK ADA – Big Island), Dolmabahce Palace, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, also known as Sultan Ahmet Mosque, and Topkapi Palace.

 

Don’t ask me for a favorite, because each site has its own awe and story to tell.

Luckily, you can go to wikipedia and get all the details you want about those places, but what people won’t tell you about Istanbul is:

1.       Never stick to the price that’s on the price tag, especially when you’re buying from street vendors and local shops. If the price tag says 10 Turkish Lira, say 5 TL and keep bargaining until they refuse to sell you, and then pay the final, lowest price given.

2.       Never get into a cab unless they have a meter; if they don’t then make sure you agree on the toll before you get in, because you could end up paying 35 TL for a 11 TL ride.

3.       Avoid using the Metro, Tramway, and Funicular unless your life depends on it because, unlike London, Madrid, and Barcelona, Istanbul doesn’t seem to have specific rush hours. Those means of transportation are always fully packed to the extent that you’ll be gasping for breath and screaming “Speed Stick”!

4.       It is an absolute must to learn a few basic Turkish terms because most of the population doesn’t speak or understand English.

5.       If you’re on a diet, or a vegetarian, you’ll be missing out on a lot of delicious food, especially the best Kofta and Yogurt in the world. Seriously, I’m originally Lebanese, and Kofta is part of our traditional cuisine, but the Turkish Kofta is to die for.

6.       If you go to Ortakoy (the sea side area under the Golden Horn Bridge) and don’t try the Kumpir (Backed Potato – Turkish Style), and the waffles, you might as well not have gone the trip in the first place!

7.       Try to forget sleeping, use coffee, Redbull, or a lot of sugar, because if you go to sleep you will definitely be missing the endless buzzing streets, especially Taksim Square and Istiklal Street that seems to be swarming with locals, tourists, vendors… all day, all night!

*Sigh*, I just can’t wait for my next trip… perhaps the Far East?  

A holiday in Britain, with no British People!

My 2012 started with a once in a lifetime experience, the London Eye fireworks display on New Year’s Eve. The crowd, the atmosphere, the fun, the celebrations, the people singing “Happy Birthday New Year, and the fireworks were really a site to see.

What followed were 7 days of shopping and roaming around the city. Bicester Village, Oxford Street, and Westfield Mall were some of the “must visit/ shop” places I went too.

The cloudy skies, red double-decker busses, and the immigrants made my stay in London truly signature.

Yes IMMIGRANTS!

Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, each street, each store was over run by people of non-English, non-white roots. In plain and simple terms, London is now one big game of “Spot the White Man.”

I have gone online and read a few articles and reports of the immigrant situation in the UK, and what continues to come up is that Joe Public is reluctant to bring up the matter openly in order not to be branded as a racist. WTF!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8451917/Who-is-to-blame-for-fractured-Britain.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/3906232/MPs-Act-now-on-immigration.html

Well I don’t mind being called a racist if I’m against my tax money being spent on supporting foreigners who function as parasites to my government.

I myself am an immigrant. My parents migrated to Canada when I was 3 years old. My father got some support from the Canadian government for a couple months before he was able to get a job, pay his own rent and expenses, get off welfare, and finally become a tax paying, legal Canadian citizen. My parents did it right.

What’s going on in London today, to my modest point of view, is an abuse of the system. Immigrants are flocking to the United Kingdom, mainly from conflict ridden countries and asking for housing, medical attention, benefits, allowances, and rights without contributing to the growth of the host country. They are sucking tax payers’ blood.

Over my stay, I heard a lot of stories about how the government is paying close to hundreds of pounds per week as rent for a single Iraqi family, its giving thousands of pounds per week for the same family as living expenses, child benefits, disability benefits; mind you, hardly any of them are disabled or lack the basic requirements to get a basic wage job.

In the elevator at Marks & Spenser in Oxford Street, one out of ten people is a white, English person. In a crowd at Sainsburry’s, two out of ten people speak the true British English accent. In Cost Co., perhaps the only wholesale market that requires you to be employed to get a membership, sixty out of the seventy people in the food court are true, blue eyed, red haired, white skinned English.

Those are very primitive observations, but I guess they are enough to say that London is over run my non English, colored people who are neither working nor becoming integrated in the community.

A lot may argue that Britain has had a long, black history of invading and colonizing countries, namely those that belong to those immigrants, but in my opinion it has paid its dues, and is continuing to do so, in a quite exaggerated manner.

Winter gets me in the London Mood

For those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning, you are familiar with the post “They still haven’t found it yet!  L”

http://byserene.blogspot.com/2011/01/they-still-havent-found-it-yet.html

If not, here’s a brief.

On my way back from my last trip to London last January, MEA airlines or “someone” lost my luggage. After letters, phone calls, searches, and a whole lot of trips to the airport, I was compensated US$ 600 and an airline ticket voucher worth US$700.

This year, and in January, I’m going back to London for a family visit, and a little shopping and sightseeing. I just can’t help it; London is a winter city, especially with all the rain and clouds, so when it rains in Lebanon everything around me seems to turn into sterling pounds, red double-decker busses, and checkered jackets.

The seat is reserved, the ticket is bought, the Dollars are converted, and the lists are completed, all I have to do now is wait till the 31^st of December. The only thing that’s hindering my excitement and bothering me is that my husband can’t join me!

Things that no one tells you about travelling to Europe!

Our honeymoon in Spain marked our first landing on European soil. I had already been to London, but the British Island is a whole different thing to me.  I knew that Spain would be the optimal trip, but words are nothing close to being there and experiencing it first hand. 

Our tour took us from Madrid to Cordoba, then to Sevilla, then to Granada, then to Valencia, then to Barcelona, then we passed in Zaragoza, then finally back to Madrid; a hectic 10 days, but worth every minute.

However, there are a few heads up worth mentioning.

Never, and a mean never travel to Europe with a 500 Euro bill because no one will give you change for it; not even shops, Western Union, Restaurants, or even the Hotel. And good luck trying to get a bank to give you change. Let’s face it; no one walks around with about US$ 700 in their pocket, it’s a lot of money. Locals call the 500 Euro “the Binladen Bill”, because no one sees it. Haha, Classic.

Public bathrooms are every girl’s nightmare! Toilet seat covers and sanitizer sprays become an invention worth a Gairdner Foundation International Award or a Nobel Prize. They are an absolute must… I can’t stress their importance enough!

Beer and Pork…Blekh!  Yes, beer is cheaper than water (a 0.5 L water bottle costs around 2.50 Euros), and pork is the favorite breakfast, lunch, and dinner… and snack and desert. I wonder why Europeans haven’t started oinking* yet.

No price is unified.  You can pay 1.60 Euros for a Sneakers bar in one convenient store, and then pay 1.20 Euros for the same bar in another.

You have to double what ever budget you set for the trip, because you just can’t practice any control when it comes to shopping, restaurants, and souvenirs.

In Canada, there are night shelters that offer soup and a bed for Homeless people… I don’t think they have that in Europe (or maybe not in Madrid).

On the other hand…

The history, the culture, the monuments, the nature, the weather, the greatness, the clean streets, the organization, the shopping, the lifestyle, and the beautiful people make you wish to turn your visit into residency.

*Oinking: From the word “Oink”, is the sound a pig makes – according to nursery rhymes.

Visa V/s. Passport

One doesn’t know the value of a passport, and I mean a European, Canadian, or American Passport, until drowned in the whirlpool that is embassies, applications, paperwork, and visas.

The only thing I worry about before I travel is booking a flight at the right date and right ticket price, all thanks to my precious Canadian Passport.  It has saved my the trouble of calling embassies, making appointments for interviews, filling applications, running all over town getting stacks of paper work done than getting them translated by a certified translator, waiting for hours in line at embassies, sitting for interviews, dreading a rejection, trying all over again if rejected, or making multiple visits to the embassy to pick up the visa if accepted.

Phew!!

After being involved with my friend’s struggle for getting the American Visa to visit her family in New York, and working to help my fiancé get the Schengen Visa to Europe for our honeymoon, I have truly learned to appreciate the little navy booklet I have.

“O Canada!”

I never thought that there was so much work and stress involved in taking a vacation outside Lebanon.  Now I know what people meant when they said, “Oh, you have a passport; don’t worry, you future is set.”   It makes me laugh now thinking back at all the people I met who joked about me marrying them just for the passport.

London

Even though I’m a Lebanese Canadian, but there is no city in the world I love and miss more than London.  The reasons; there might be many or even none… I just love that city.

London had always been the fairy tale city with kings, queens, princes and princesses.  The city that nearly conquered the world, the city where Shakespeare wrote, the city where my closest aunt and uncle live...

My trip to London was on the 1^st of January 2011, and again in January 2012!

From the time that the plane was making a decent into Heathrow and I saw the green grounds and the mid century London houses I fell in love.   Each and every sight I saw was a gasp of culture, history, civilization, and authenticity. I was in tears when the plane took off, taking me back to Lebanon.