We Make Several Dumb Mistakes upon Arriving in Istanbul

Even though we have learned a lot about how to travel smart, sometimes we do dumb stuff anyway. And sometimes our luck just runs out. Our arrival in Istanbul exemplifies both. We were arriving from Paris in the middle of the night. This is a stupid thing to do; we know that. Sometimes we do it anyway, and one out of every three times it turns out badly. This was that time! The first challenge was visas: we had learned that we could obtain visas on arrival.

Laurel assumed that it worked like the last two times, i.e., they’d put the little sticker in our passports when they examined them. Dumb! Not this time. Instead, we waited in line for nearly an hour and were then sent to a place to buy a visa. Naturally, that office only took USD. We used an ATM to get some. On the up side, the ATM worked and the office was open in the middle of the night. So no real harm done; just time wasted.

Because it was late and we had a lot of luggage, we’d arranged with our landlord to have a car pick us up. He gave us tons of information, with pictures, about where to meet, and we sent him our cell number. This all sounds smart, but it didn’t work. We found the meeting place but no driver. We’d asked for his cell phone number and not received it. There were a bunch of other drivers, and once we gave them the name of the company, they said they’d call our driver. Then they said he was ‘on his way’. One of them showed us a text from the driver with our names on it (which is why we didn’t think it was one of those ‘don’t-worry-my-cousin-will-take-you-instead’ scams).

About forty-five minutes later, however, our man with the phone disappeared to take his own passengers. Losing patience, we asked a couple of people when our driver was coming. They shrugged their shoulders. So we told them we’d take a taxi. This worked just fine: the trunk was plenty big enough and the driver took credit cards. He struggled a bit to find the address, but eventually, there we were, home sweet home, Istanbul, in front of a somewhat dilapidated building in the middle of the night.

Here’s another dumb thing: we had instructions about how to get into the flat, but there was nobody there. Miraculously, the lock box outside the building actually worked (we checked before letting the taxi go; we’re dumb but not total rookies). Our flat, the instructions said, was on ‘the first floor’ with ‘a brand new door’. Number 6. As you may know, the term ‘first floor’ sounds unambiguous but means different things to different people. And, as it turned out, the flats were not numbered, or at least, not in any way we could see. Leaving our luggage in the lightbulb-flickering-on-and-off hallway, we set off to explore. There were two flats on the ground floor.

Neither of them had a door that looked new to us, let alone brand-new. We went up a floor and found one possibility, but the lights were on inside and the key didn’t fit right. We went down to the basement (possibly also a first floor?). Very old doors. Laurel stealthily tried the keys in various of the less-dodgy doors, hoping not to wake up anybody. Then we went up two floors and discovered flat number 8. With two flats per floor and counting the below-ground floor as flats #1 and 2, that sent us back down a floor, where Laurel was slightly more persistent at the shiny door with the key that didn’t fit. Success! We threw our stuff on the ground and tumbled into bed to get a couple of hours’ sleep before starting our day.

Practical Lessons for You from our Dumb Mistakes

• Even when you know how visas work because you have been somewhere before, check again.
• Carry some USD or €; they often come in really handy.
• It is also not-dumb to get some local currency before you arrive; airports usually have ATMs but your card might not work.
• If you have arranged for transport, get their phone number in addition to providing yours. Also, ask for a backup plan. Ideally, don’t pay in advance (we didn’t in this case, but our landlord did, and we had to have an awkward conversation about how we were not going to give him $100 for a ride we didn’t take).
• Don’t arrive at night, especially if you are not checking into a hotel. Even in a hotel, make sure there is someone at the desk 24 hours a day. Or just don’t do this. It’s dumb.
• Read instructions several times over and ask dumb questions – ‘are the apartments numbered?’ would have been useful, or even ‘could you send us a picture of the front door?’

Also, we mentioned cats in our last post. Here’s one, who spends her or his days napping in our front doorway. We nearly tripped over him or her with our suitcases in the middle of the night, but she or he remained unmoved. Cats here have spunk. We hate spunk…