The C-Stan Outro

I’m trying to think of other things of note from my considerably languid time in C-Stan.  I’m not exactly recounting anything in perfectly sequential order, and I must admit I didn’t do anything too spectacular.  When I was dropped off in Taksim my first night I was delighted to find a McDonald’s right in the main square because you know as well as I do that McDonald’s = free wifi (in fact, only in Romania has it been that I had to actually buy a meal at a McDonald’s in order to get an hour’s worth of free wifi to help me figure out where I was).  The first thing I found in my considerably full inbox was an e-mail from S in all-caps that said “DO NOT STAY SULTANAHMET!  GO TO TAKSIM!!!  BY ALL MEANS VISIT SULTANAHMET BUT STAY IN TAKSIM.”  

This was pretty sound advice.  I did stay in Taksim, mainly because I was already in Taksim, and the two times I wandered over to Sultanahmet (apparently there is some sort of bluish mosque there and a palace or something) I was accosted by the most lethargic carpet salesman in my entire experience of the Levant/Maghreb: 
“How many carpets are you going to buy today?”
“None.”
“Okay.”

S was totally right: no one should have to put up with this kind of treatment.  The spark has gone out of Turkish retailing.  But why wouldn’t it?  Dealing with tourists must be awful.  In fact, the first thing I noticed upon entering the city was the tourists.  I could argue that they are everywhere and ruining this city, but I suppose then that tourists have been ruining Constantinople since the city was founded due to its whole cross-roadedness.

One part of town I did like was this hill on the south side of Taksim that had lots of small corner cafes and one chain restaurant that was always offering free samples of chicken or bread or something.  Down by the water there was also a tall ships exhibition with galleons, or frigates, or privateers or whatever from all over Europe. The Russian ship was my favourite mainly because the lack of customer-service-oriented attitude of the sailors guarding it. 

Battleship MIR was closed.  The guard told me, "I don't known when is open. Maybe tomorrow, maybe later.  Now is closed."  As someone who once worked in public relations for a port authority, I took issue with his tone. 

I guess I can say that the most memorable part of Constantinople for me was leaving Constantinople, mainly because it took me (with the assistance of Turkish Rail) 42 hours.  Much like in almost every other instance, the day before my departure I did a dry run and reconned the Eastern Train Station on the Asian side.  I purchased my ticket and planned out my route.  But no amount of careful planning and diligent route-surveying could prepare me for this atrocious Turko-Cypriot at the hostel who went to Texas A&M and, in between telling me stories about how drunk he got at university and how he’s an arms dealer or “military contractor” or whatever and the step-son of the Dutch ambassador to France and how I should NOT go to Armenia because it’s the most boring place on the planet, also demanded that I take a minibus to the train station and not take the ferry.  He even got up at 5am to walk me to the square for the mini-buses where we learned that they had all left, so I had to run down to the dock to catch the ferry.  This only strengthened my resolve to visit Armenia because if he was wrong about the minibuses, then I had ever reason to doubt absolutely everything he said, especially all the stories about how awesome his university experience was.

Somebody needs to write a book on hostel etiquette and then throw it at these two awful hippie girls who dumped out the contents of their suitcases on the floor in the middle of the dorm and also walked around Constantinople barefoot and were generally unpleasant.  

Aside from being a popular place to drink tea, Constantinople is also one of  the larger ports in the world.  These are gantry cranes.  Please ask me more about them. 

Luckily I caught the ferry and was in time to catch my train but not enough time to buy some sort of gyro or breakfast-appropriate food or anything to stock up for 36 hours of trans-Asia-Minor fun.  So a small kefir and a pretzel had to suffice for the morning and I thenceforth I would be at the mercy of the dining cart.