My trip to the airport in Budapest went well, especially
compared to my ridiculously challenging trip from the Istanbul airport to the
office where we were meeting for the conference. I turned my European phone off when I boarded
the plane like I was supposed to. Good Amy. But when I turned it back on in
Istanbul, it asked me for my PIN. Luckily, I remembered the PIN that I told the
Vodaphone salesperson to set it as. This
didn’t work. “Two more attempts.” Uh oh. The Vodaphone guy may have told me
that there was a separate PINs for phone and SIM card. He also may have handed
the other PIN to me on a piece of paper that I never looked at and left in
Budapest. Uh oh.
This normally would not be terribly problematic because I
can deal without having a phone during my time in Turkey; no problem! But, I
was going to meet up with some other UNITED Conference participants at the
airport, so I had no way of getting ahold of them. Despite having no form of contact at Ataturk
airport, I tried to find them for 45 minutes.
Eventually, I gave up and went to take the Metro by myself. I had withdrawn money, but they gave me a 100
Turkish Lira bill, and the metro machine doesn’t take bills over 20. How
convenient. Thankfully, I was able to
communicate this to a metro attendant, and he solved my problem by using a
machine in the ticket counter, which was closed. The metro ride was long (an hour and a half),
but most of it was above ground, so I got to see a lot of Istanbul. I had the address of the office where we were
meeting, but no real idea of where that was.
Once I got to Taksim Square, I pulled out the free map I had picked up
at the airport to investigate. It was
absolutely useless. It was so zoomed out
of Istanbul that you could see four other countries on it. Great plan Amy. Still, I was determined. I would find
it.
I asked this woman who looked like she spoke English if she
knew how to get to the address.
Unfortunately, the reason she looked like she spoke English was because
she was not Turkish. She did, however,
speak enough Turkish to ask some men next to us. One of them spoke English, and
he said it was a 20 minute walk toward Tunel. Oh gosh. That was what I was
afraid of. Luckily, I packed very light, so my load wasn’t very heavy, but my
ankle was really starting to hurt. Nevertheless, I started trudging in that
direction. A few minutes into the walk,
one of the men—the one that spoke English—was walking next to me. He was
pleasant, but his goal was pretty clear. He did tell me I looked like an angel,
though, which is always nice to hear. We
stopped a few times on the way there to ask people if we were still heading the
right way, and they always assured us that we were. We parted ways when we arrived at my
sidestreet, and I looked to find the right place.
 |
| Busy shopping street! |
After walking back-and-forth a few times with people
pointing me one direction then another, an eclectic-looking man sitting at a
café asked me if I needed any help. I
did, yes. I sat down at the chair across
from him and explained my predicament.
He told me some bad news. The
office was right by Taksim Square, 2 kilometers away, and where I had just
walked from. My ankle was throbbing, and I told him that I just couldn’t walk
there. He suggested the trolley, which I
thought was an excellent idea. He
brought me to the trolley stop, and on the way past half a dozen people who
greeted him. Apparently, he’s a famous Turkish artist! I wish I could remember
his name. Rossi or something. Well, he
took me to the trolley, and even convinced the trolley conductor to stop at the
street of the office. That was good news.
I was tired of walking and tired of being lost. The trolley conductor and I made small talk
as we approached the station. He was
excited that I was from America. Also, I like the way that foreign people say
“America!” He stopped at my street, and I finally finally walked into the
office where we were meeting. I met with
some of the other conference participants, and we all boarded the bus toward
Sile!
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