I always forget that in this country, you're lucky if you get one thing done per day. The last few days, I have had to do several things in a day and it has exhausted me so much more than I would have thought. I forgot how tiring it is to try to actually get things done here. First of all, my computer needed to be fixed, which I already wrote about. I really had no clue what to do or where to take it. There was also the looming fact that I needed to get out of the country to renew my visa. On both counts our DOS was being completely unhelpful. I finally got him to call a mac place I found online and he wrote down an address and said, "Go here." I had no clue where it was or how to get there. The place is in Şişli, and I had never been to that part of Istanbul before. So, I took the number of the place and the address to a Turkish teacher, Turcan, who is always very helpful. He called the place, they told him a website to visit and he went there and printed out a map for me and then said, "well, Ali wrote the street name completely wrong, you never would have found this place." Thanks for nothing, Ali. Then he told me exactly which buses to take to get there. So, two days ago I set out to take my laptop to be fixed. We did eventually find it after a 45 minute bus ride and a long walk. When we walked in the store and tried to speak to them, we realized that nobody that was there spoke English. The lady at the desk called someone and then handed me the phone. I explained why I was there to the voice on the phone, and then handed it back and he explained to her what I had said. Then she shouted to the back room and sent me back there. The guy spoke very little English, but I was able to tell him what was wrong and he told me that I just needed a new hard drive. The total cost of the new hard drive and the work was only 140 dollars, which I was quite satisfied with. They told me that they couldn't recover any of the data from the old hard drive and that really pissed me off because I have backed up almost everything on my external hard drive-- except all of my music! They told me to come back the next day (yesterday) and it should be ready by the afternoon. So yesterday I needed to teach my morning class, go to sisli and get my computer, figure out my bus ticket to Bulgaria, get back in time to do a Conversation Club at 6pm and then teach night class. That's entirely too much for one day, but I somehow managed to get everything done. After I taught my morning class I talked to Turcan again (he's pretty much the saviour of us foreign teachers here) and he offered to walk with me to a branch of the bus company that is in Bakirköy. We walked for about fifteen minutes in the cold and got to the bus company. I wanted to buy the ticket then to get it out of the way to I didn't have to worry about it at 8 o'clock this morning. That was all fine and dandy, only 30 lira and I need your passport please. uh.... my passport? Crap! So, I had to trudge back fifteen mins to my apartment to get the stupid passport and come back to pay for the ticket. After I did that, I had to find a bus stop and wait for a bus back to Mecidiyeköy, ride that for 45 mins, walk twenty mins to Şişli where the computer place is. I did that, and I had good luck and my computer was actually fixed when I arrived at the Mac repair place. Thank God! 195 YTL lighter and one ibook heavier I left the repair shop and headed to the mall in sisli to look for a book for my long journey to Bulgaria and back. I did find a book and it was "only" 16 YTL (that's cheap for English books around here....) and even ignored how broke I was and got myself a starbucks coffee to keep me warm on my journey back. When I got back to the bus station in Mecidiyeköy, all of the seats on the bus were taken and I had to stand the 45 mins back to Bakirköy. As soon as I got off the bus I had to hurry back to work and do a conversation club for an hour and then give an exam for two hours for someone who was sick. Needless to say I slept like a rock last night. I had to wake up at 7am to take a quick shower and head off to catch the service bus to the Otogar. When I got in the shower I just touched the shower head and the hose somehow came partly disconnected and started leaking everywhere! It was the most horrible shower of my life, and when I was done the bathroom was like it had a river running through it.
I am now almost to Bulgaria and all of the trees and grasses are frosted over with ice crystals! I am really unsure of how I am supposed to do this exiting the country and then catching a bus back thing! Of course Ali was completely unhelpful in this department, saying he didnt know anything about it and wondering why I would expect such a thing from him. Heaven forbid the company that is employing me illegally should know something about border runs... Supposedly I have to exit the bus and then walk for quite a ways back over the border in the freezing cold, buy a return ticket and wait like an hour in the freezing cold for the return bus. Hopefully it works out with a little less of me standing in the freezing cold.. but I 'll let you know what happens.
Well I was right about the waiting and about the freezing cold. After we got stamped out of Turkey and into Bulgaria, the girl working on the bus was trying to talk to me, and had to ask who on the bus spoke
English so they could talk to me. She wanted to know if I was just doing an exit and re-entry. She said that I would just get out and cross to the other side and that soon another bus would come. I was like what the crap, how do I know where to wait and what to say to the new bus that comes, I don't even have a ticket! So she comes with me, goes over to the passport stamper guy in the booth and tells him I'm just doing an exit. He tells me to come inside and wait. So I go into the booth and just sit there all awkwardly watching him stamp passports of people in cars for about ten minutes. Then, he says, "Come with me," and we cross to the other side, of people going out of Bulgaria and into Turkey, he explains to the guy at that window what's going on. This guys speaks no English. So, he stamps my passport and gives it back and basically motions for me to get out of the way and just wait. And wait I did. My fingers almost froze off. I found a bathroom and it was godawful. I almost fell in.
I went back to waiting, and I must have waited about 45mins and finally a Metro bus comes! However, I didn't really know what to say, they didn't speak English and I speak barely any Turkish. I just said, "bilet, Istanbul??" and they motioned for me to get on the bus. Phew! Then we waited about another two hours in between Bulgaria and Turkey for the five other passengers of the bus to get their passports returned to them after they'd been stamped. ugh. Then there was the standing outside to buy a visa and to get my passport stamped for Turkey. Then there was the everybody getting off of the bus with all of the luggage to get it and the bus searched. Now, we are finally on the stinking road back to Istanbul, thank God! :) Its 4:45pm, and I'm hoping I'll be back home by 8:00. It might just be a dream, though.
Well, I rocked up to my apartment at about 9:15pm after waiting an hour for the service bus that goes to Bakirköy. I guess 12 hours to leave the country and come back isn't all that bad, even though it's only actually 3 1/2 hours to the border... shows how much time is wasted in customs.
P.s. I promised some videos of Egypt so here's one of them, I'll get a couple more up soon! :)
Anthony and I to come (we share the class). It was about 40 minutes away at one of my students' summer house on the sea. It was a pretty nice day, but it did end up raining a bit. When we were almost to the summer house we stopped 
at a grocery store to pick up the food. They got chicken wings that already are seasoned
for bbq-ing, and I mean they GOT chicken wings! They filled up a grocery bag chock full, it must have been like a hundred wings. They also got Adana Kebap (which happens to be my favorite Turkish food). A ton of other food was also purchased, and of course we were not allowed to give them ANY money... A couple of the students got really crazy and decided to go in the water!!! It was seriously freezing cold and when they came out they were totally red and I was sure they would get pneumonia and die! but all is well. They want us to have another picnic next Friday, but we'll see what happens.
