Missed trains and a plane

So as previously mentioned, I was travelling with my mother August 12-23. We were in Italy and then in Nice, France (which was her last minute decision because she likes that boring and extremely overpriced and overrated place, I actually had flights and a hotel booked for us in Bari).

We had flights out of Milan, hers back to Russia via Istanbul, mine back to Berlin, both within an hour of each other. To cut a long story relatively short, first and then second taxi failed to show up to drive us to the train station  in Nice (we were supposed to take 3 trains to get to Milan and then a bus to the airport there), people in the street refused to help us get there (for $, obviously), regular cars wouldn't stop, it was 04.30am, so no public transportation, policemen didn't give us a ride (in films they always do...), we missed the perfectly timed trains and my actual worst nightmare came to life.

I kept thinking that I will probably wake up soon.

If it had been me alone, it wouldn't have been so bad, or me with a friend. But with my mother it was the worst, because, first of all, the stress was enormous for her and secondly, she wouldn't like... run and do something crazy like I would do to make it for the train and so on.

We took later trains, with them we had a small chance of making it for my mother's flight, but the last train was 10 minutes late (I mean this is Italy we're talking about). This was already 8 hours after the day had started for us. From Milan central station we took a taxi to the Bergamo airport (which cost me 100EUR!.. last winter I paid the same amount for 6 or 7 flights with Ryanair) and even though I called the airline and asked them to please hold the check in because "my mother has been discharged from the hospital late", they didn't and we arrived 13 minutes after the check in was closed! Talk about devastation.

My mother had already lost it several times by then and was completely uncooperative when it came to coming up with something, just crying with her sunglasses on which added to the already insane situation. I had only 45 minutes left to check in for my flight and I had to do something. There were options for her to go to another airport and fly from there, but I had no Internet and couldn't be sure there'd be tickets and she'd actually make it, also I wasn't sure my sister was skilled enough to buy a ticket from home without my supervision and so on. Plus, on top of not being perfect with directions, my mother doesn't speak enough English to get by. And I couldn't leave her in a foreign country by herself! I couldn't stay because how else would I go back and we had a limited amount of money on us. Also, we couldn't rebook her tickets for anything earlier than like 5 days from Tuesday, for an enormous fine, and we didn't have enough money for this many nights in a hotel anymore.

This was all happening in an overcrowded airport, 40C/105F outside, etc. etc. Somehow it was extremely emotional and nerve-wracking, I'm afraid words don't relay that very well. Eventually I bought a last minute ticket for her for same Ryanair flight to Berlin (the most expensive one-way ticket I ever bought, 300EUR, I had enough money by accident... I normally prefer not to take a lot of money so that there is no temptation to spend it).

We flew in here, she spent these 1.5 days in our flatshare. And then, on August 25, her birthday, she flew home. We actually had a good time here and except for the lost money, it all turned out fine, but I don't think I've ever been so stressed in my life. I mean, lots of people have missed flights in their lifetimes and probably it's not the end of the world, but it felt like it was...

Milan & Turin, Italy + Nice, France (genius title, I know)

Traveling with one’s mother is definitely no sugar-coated thing. My mother does not like to walk fast, to walk much, to be in the sun, she wants to live in cheap but great accommodation, somewhere intensely close to the main sights of a certain place. I could go on and on.

The thing is, I had our trip well planned until my mother had to change her mind last minute. We lost 4 plane tickets all together as well as about a trillion of my nerves and hair. We planned to go to Milan, Turin and Bari in Italy. Now we’re doing Milan and Turin in Italy and Nice, France. By chance I found a great 1-bedroom apartment in Old Town of Nice, booked new train tickets literally several hours before my flight out of Berlin (prior to that it’d been a week of frenetic looking for hotels, comparing prices and so on) and off we went.

I’m not a fan of Milan, but it so happens I’ve been there twice in the last year. It’s a good hub for the south of Europe, I guess. Since I’m no fan of shopping anymore (in fact, I find it really hard to make myself go buy some new clothes), Milan is a bad place for me to go because there’s nothing but shopping there (although it’s better in other cities, but somehow Milan has had good marketing). Shopping, Duomo and The Last Supper. But thankfully I only had several hours to lose there and all I did was have lunch with my sister and mother and then I had a short walk in some park where I saw a big fat rat and dodgy looking people. My sister then stayed in Milan for several more days and my mother and I went on further.

Turin was a curious experience. It’s the first Italian city I’ve been to that totally corresponds to the stereotype of being nearly dead in the summer. Most shops were closed, so were many restaurants and it seemed like not many people were around. But it was still quite interesting. They have a complicated bus system there where the map isn’t necessarily up-to-date and the buses are not on time, but that shouldn’t really surprise anyone who’s visiting Italy. It was nice overall, although it turned out to be smaller than I imagined it. They sell lots of good wine there.

Nice, on the other hand… I know it there is a risk of this sounding pretentious, but Nice, France has to be one of the most boring places I’ve been to. Last time I was here was exactly 2 years ago and I was bored out of my mind. A couple of people I was travelling with went to Cannes and I was majorly excited because I’m such a movie buff still, but it was disappointing. Yes, there are palms and there is the sea, but then there’s also the outrageous prices, old+rich people in abundance and that’s it. It's hard to find anything but Italian food here, I'll be honest with ya. Nice is the same. This time around I’ve come to establish that there is some nice live music in the evening about a block down from our apartment and then there's that fantastic posh cemetery with a view on the Mediterranean Sea, but otherwise Nice, France is not my choice for vacation. My mother, on the other hand, has been heard to call it heaven on Earth which just makes me want to chuckle. :) Ah, you know me. Me and my difficult character.

Some price comparison:

Pizza Margherita (not the supermarket version): Nice - from 9EUR (average price 10.5EUR), Milan - from 5EUR, Berlin from 2.5EUR (average price 4EUR)
Tomatoes, 1kg: Berlin - 0.5-1.5EUR, Nice - 1-4.5EUR
Nectarines, 1kg: Berlin - from 2kg for 1EUR to 1EUR per 1kg, Nice - 2.5-5EUR.

And so on.

The good thing is, I’ve been working on my tan. I haven’t been this well-tanned in something like 3 or 4 years now and I must admit I do get a kick out of seeing my skin go darker and darker. I feel a bit like a valley girl when I say and think that, but what can you do. Nothing but keep on tanning and swimming.

Anyhow, in about 32 hours we’re taking a train (or more like 3 trains actually) and then for me it’s a flight to Berlin and my mother will fly to Krasnodar via Istanbul.

As always, I’m happy to return to Berlin. I hear the weather has been good for once. Baffling! It better stay this way so that I can strut my tan.

Microsoft Word is not my friend

Pfftt... I love it when you bang something out in Word and then want to save it and yet hit "no" instead of "yes" if Microsoft Office asks you about saving. I need a cigarette and a drink now. My life does not depend on it (although for a while it felt like it did!), but it was a blogpost where I described in details the events of the 4 weeks I've been in Berlin. Man. I wanted to scream, but I have three other people sitting all around me in the living room here.

Well, the short version is: all is well and even better. Meeting old and new friends and buddies, going out, hanging out, cycling, swimming, kissing, chilling, slacking off, working, receiving friends, going to art galleries and a supposedly exclusive fashion fair (although that does nothing for me) trying out nudist beaches, eating 1m long pizza and just having an overall good time.

This does not even begin to scratch the surface of the time I'm having, but... I am. Ha. Ha. <Insert funny one liner here.>

I'll be going vegan again tomorrow. Means I'll move from my temporary place in Kreuzberg to a less temporary place in Neukölln. Will have to part with eggs, milk and some other stuff for a while.

Thanks to fleetingness and Andreas for stopping by, again. :)

Mari, I must have overlooked your comment to the previous post while packing my stuff! I studied languages (although, admittedly, I squeezed out more from the Internet than school and university ever taught me re: English) and they are a personal interest of mine, but the overall knowledge of English in the country is far from being great. Although I understand now as US-based social networks are gaining more leverage in Russia, there's some progress in this department. Thank you for stopping by here, though! And here's to Berlin finally having a good hair weather day!

Idle time between my travels

Well, I have to say that June has been extremely uneventful. I planned to spend 4 weeks at home as last time I was here it was under 3 weeks and it felt they were rushed and I didn't have enough time. I suppose every time is different because now it felt like it's been  2 weeks too many.

I met almost everybody I planned to meet, but yet overall I had little to do. Somehow I found myself in between projects as well, so not only did I not truly entertain myself as most friends work desk jobs and don't have time during the day, but also I couldn't really do anything productive as half the time I had no work to do. That was the time when I was fully invested in my Internet addiction. Of course ironically I will have two simultaneous projects to work on once I arrive in Berlin, so I guess it will not be only fun at first. But I'm not complaining, work = $$$.

Nothing changed in Krasnodar, it's still a lot of umm..showing off and "glamour" Russian-style here. So I will not be sad when I leave. I was really lucky to re-connect with my friends though. I say re-connect because funnily enough my friends don't use Skype and we don't really exchange lots of emails when I'm away, some explain this as them being not prone to writing. (Sounds weird to me, too.) Also none of them really read this blog, which is frustrating, one valid reason is that some don't speak English and a less valid reason is that some don't have the time. Which makes it hard for me because people then want me to tell them stories of my travels in person and there's only so many times that I can repeat something.

I am delighted to be going back to Berlin. I'm happy to say that I have two friends that I can't wait to meet and who seem eager as well and there are some acquaintances that I will get in touch with as well as new exciting CS buddies. Yee ha! Maybe a good friend from Russia will visit as well, that will be exciting!

I can't wait to get a bike and explore Berlin on it. Here I biked to my dacha once (45km in total) only to find out we roughly had 25 cherries from 5 cherry trees. Me = devastated!

I haven't packed anything yet, but I packed and unpacked so much in the last 7 months that it takes little time and effort now. Mentally I'm definitely in Berlin already.

In the meantime, below are pictures from the one weekend trip I took in June. Namely, to the Russian side of the Black Sea. I could actually live there for a while. If they had Internet connection there.

This would be a lovely workplace 

Leaving Istanbul

Well, the ugly truth is that initially I thought I’d enjoy my time in Istanbul more. I loved it greatly when my friend and I first stopped by for 5 days in November ’10, but now I got a taste of life here. Mistake number 1 was not properly researching the area I was going to live in. I was lured in by the cheap rent (guilty as charged) and thought it didn’t matter how far it was from the European side and what the night connections looked like.

I lived in the Bulgurlu area of Uskudar, a conservative neighborhood on the Asian side. I mean there is nothing wrong with it per se, but it is an extremely suburban district where the only fun imaginable is grocery shopping and as a friend put in, you can also rent DVDs in Bulgurlu. That’s about it. I loved our local Thrursday market that was just outside the door and I loved the nearby Camlica Park, but other than that it was a pretty boring part of the city.

Also I had bad luck with the Istanbul Couchsurfing community. I got all those mass emails from the guys desperate to get laid with a foreigner, but when I tried to contact people and meet up and do something together, it didn’t really work out. I met a couple of people (out of about a dozen that I messaged), but it seemed they were a bit busy for new acquaintances, so it ended there. I was a bit surprised as this not  the CS that I know and love. And then of course it happened… In my last 2 weeks in Turkey I met some fantastic people, both local and not who made that time great by being around. We shared quite a few experiences together and of course it made me sad to leave.

Still, although I was raging about traffic and the dirty looks from men while I was there, it’s all part of Istanbul and now I miss even the things I wasn’t really fond of. But most of all I guess I miss the Bosphorus and the ferry rides. Those islands in the Marmara Sea. It feels so unusual now without the same amount of water nearby. And without any seagulls. Funny, I was also not happy about the food sold in supermarkets, but it appears I’d grown accustomed to it and now look for similar things in local supermarkets here in Russia.

But… there’s something that really, truly keeps my spirits up and it is my upcoming trip to Berlin. I set off on July 3 or 4 (depending on whether I will fly to Moscow or take the train) and wow, I am sure it will be the best summer in my life! 

What I like about living in Istanbul, Turkey

The variety of fruits and vegetables. Almost everything grows within the limits of the country and although I would be surprised if no pesticides were used to grow at least some of them, I do believe the total amount is far less than elsewhere. 

Turkish breakfast. (Again with the food, eh?) I have already professed my love for simit (like a dozen times), but I didn’t mention the bread and the olives. I do now: those olives and that bread with some of that white cheese… Yummy mummy! Best served at home, but do try some places for breakfast around Beşiktaş.

Colors. Istanbul has to be the most colorful city I have set my foot in. Red flags, yellow cabs, grey and pale red mosques, blue strait and seas, green palms, firs and poplars to name a few. All of that thrown in together makes for a vivid palette.

Emotions. This is both positive and negative. When I’m feeling low-key and go shopping on some central market or I’m walking down a touristy street, the last thing I want is the vendors to scream as if trying to save their lives thus advertising their goods or hosts to offer me their overpriced menu in high pitch. But other than that, interaction between people is almost always emotional and a nice to watch. From the side. Mostly no Turkish languages skills are needed to understand. 

Sights. Well… What can I say. Istanbul is a city of many, many hills and climbing most of them is a bit of a challenge, but once you’re out there on top, you can see Istanbul as plain as the nose on your face. Another nice view is from the side of Üsküdar (best at night), when you stand directly before the Maiden’s Tower and Sultanahmet is right behind it across the water. Sigh. It’s worth living just to see that, my friends. Or as you’re passing the always busy Bosphorus bridge, glance left and right to be amazed by the natural beauty that is the Bosphorus straight and Asia and Europe.

Water. The Marmara Sea, the Bosphorus Strait, the Black Sea. If there’s one thing Turkey’s unofficial capital doesn’t lack, it is water sources. Cozy cafes by the water are the best, too. Try some in Beylerbeyi or Çengelköy, they are so people-friendly, they actually let you bring your own breakfast and only order coffee or tea. All that for minimal prices and unbeatable views.

Ferries. In a hectic city like Istanbul, seeking tranquility might be pointless. However, it is right here. No matter what water route or direction you take, rest assured that it will be a slow-paced ride (sometimes so relaxing that it makes you doze off). Plus, those views are still there. All for less than 2TL per person.

What I don’t like about living in Istanbul, Turkey

I have previously written about the things that I enjoy in the humongous city that is Istanbul and now it is only fair that I highlight the negative parts.

• First of all, - and it comes first because it’s the most recent experience - no matter what they tell you, Istanbul is not as liberal as some people want it to be. Yes, Taksim is arguably the heart of modern Istanbul and everyone is pretty progressive there, so is Levent and Nisantasi and some other places, but make a step from this liberal comfort zone and you will find yourself in the debris of conservativeness. We’re talking about clothes, attitude and alcohol consumption among many other things here. It is not a pleasant thing if you’re accustomed to wearing shorts in the summer and having a beer at the neighborhood picnic. You will get stares that are bound to make you feel uncomfortable.

• Traffic. Wow. Well, I’ve said this before, but do trust me when I say it KILLS YOU here. It fucking kills you. The regular rush hours are 7am to 10am and 5pm to 8pm. But this is just a rough guideline. Sometimes (no, I mean most of the time) there are still traffic jams in early and late afternoon. Want to really avoid traffic? Take the midnight bus. It almost guarantees you a fast ride. Worst traffic day is Saturday. Apparently not many Istanbul people party their brains out on Friday night and then sleep in on Saturday. Nope, most wake up sharply around 8am or 9am and go out shopping, dining and doing other activities that involve creating major traffic jams. It is very frustrating, believe you me.

And the thing is, you can’t walk here. I mean, you can probably swing an hour long walk, but the distances are so vast here that it is your destiny to rot in some bus where some nasty Turkish dude tries to touch your hip.

Your one safety harbor is the ferry boat. They are always on time, efficient and traffic free. Too bad they only serve on water.

• Now, this may be controversial. Food. I know many people consider it amazing and it apparently is one of the 3 most important cuisines in the world (after… Italian and French?). So it should taste well. I thought so. But there’s only so many lentils and beans I can eat in my lifetime, you know? I do enjoy the occasional döner dürüm, tavuk dürüm, iskender kebab and some other dishes involving chicken (in that great self-service diner on Istiklal Caddesi), but on the whole, it’s not my type of food. Meat together with yogurt? It tastes weird at first, but then I guess it gets better and so does the combination of some meat-type fastfood (like döner) together with Ayran (the salty mix of yogurt and water), but I don't feel it is in my heart to eat this always.

Also, supermarkets here suck. Have you been to BIM or Dia or Migros or Sok or any other chain? Have you? Well, you’ve been to one, you’ve been to all of them. They all sell the same stuff in every town and city that I’ve been to. And the selection is quite limited, in my humble opinion. Particularly the sweets. I’m sorry, but the selection of candy here sucks (they do not have M’n’M’s here! Imagine that!) and chocolate is kind of expensive save for the cheap chocolate bars for 0.25-0.5 TL that are pretty basic. Really. My sweet tooth has been suffering a lot here. I also miss the variety of dairy that I've seen in other countries, here you get milk, ayran, and (plain yogurt). And a limited variety of cheese.

What every supermarket does offer is great bread though. And simit. But you already know I’m the queen of simits (sesame bagels).

That's it for starters...