» Turkey - Kusadasi

Well, we finally made it to Turkey and have become millionaires here. I changed $100 and with the exchange rate got back 160,000,000 Turkish lira. A coffee costs 1,500,000 TL. I’d hate to see what a car costs. That money should cover everything for a week here, everything is pretty cheap.

Kusadasi is pretty touristy, but it was the quickest way in after we lost all of that time messing with the visa’s. From here we went to Ephesus for the day. It was cool to see the things left from the first century. I took a ton of pictures but haven’t had time to prepare them. I’ll send
along when I can.

Tomorrow we take a bus 8 hours to Gallipoli and Troy and then into Istanbul for the last few days before we fly back to Amsterdam. So far I haven’t been utterly impressed with Turkey. Everyone said it was similar to Greece, but to me, it’s several steps below that. We’ve met some
seemingly nice locals, but I still get the impression that they would take us for what they could should they get the chance.

Oh yeah… the Russian visa’s… That one almost didn’t happen. We got a ferry all the way back to Athens, just to try to get them there. First they gave us the address for the embassy. After an hour bus ride to that address, the guard out front explained through broken English and Greek and Russian that we had to go to another address where the consulate was. Thirty minutes of wandering around later, we found a cab that took us the rest of the way. He dropped us off at where the address should have been but it was a construction site (read big hole in the ground). The consulate had been torn down.

After much trepidation and fretting we finally found a small building left on the site that housed the visa office. Security guard let us in and helped us find a woman who spoke English to explain what we needed there and how much (1 photo and 130 euro). Security guard points the general direction of a photo shop. Twenty minute (each way) hike and four photos later we are back. It’s now 11.00 am and the office closes at noon (we started this fiasco at 8am). Security guard smiles and lets us back in. Forgot the $$$. No credit card, US$ no good obviously and only 100 euro between us I have to leave and hike 10 minutes the other way to hit the cash machine. This time the guard openly laughs at us when we return for the fourth time.

Now hurry up and wait in line to get paperwork, then another queue to wait to speak to the only guy in the office that grants visas. Wait for the one woman who speaks English to be available to help translate. Finally, everything ok, you can pick up your visas September 17. Oh no! We fly from Istanbul September 18. Once again, our now not so friendly translator returns, so we can explain we talked to someone on the phone who said we could do it in two hours. Finally…. yes that’s possible for some extra $$, but we only accept same day paperwork until 12 noon (it’s 12:30). Please come back tomorrow at 9am to pick up. Oh no! Please, please, please (we are trying to make a 5pm boat to Samos near Kusadasi so we don’t have to stay another day in Greece). I have no idea why she finally did it but she made the paperwork right there, although she was thoroughly unhappy (probably just to get us out of her hair). We have Russian Visas now! US Postal Service is wonderful! With all the trouble we caused there, she may have put something in Russian in the comments section of the visa, so we get arrested upon entry (keep your fingers crossed).

PS Michael shaved his head

PPS and bought a rather expensive Turkish rug (being shipped home). I wouldn’t have believed either had I not seen it with my own eyes, too out of character!

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