Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Not Istanbul

Well, haven't I just had an interesting week?

Intrigued?

I think you might be.

I thought I'd add this post to reach the maximum number of friends and family members to elicit the optimal amount of empathy, or sympathy at the very least. For those who know me, please read the following with my sense of humour firmly clenched between your buttocks and in your mind. For those of you who have had the pleasure never to meet me, I'm in no way the miserable, curmudgeonly, cantankerous fool you will soon believe me to be. It's just that I happen not to come across as an aimiable chap in my written ramblings.

Anyway, I've had an interesting week because I am in Athens and I don't want to be.

Now, don't get me wrong. The Hellenistic peoples have given much to the world and, under more pleasant circumstances, I would be happy to munch on yiros and idle away the hours among naked marbles in the Archeological Museum.

However, I should be feasting on doner kebabs and sitting with my cats on the couch in my apartment. Fortune has turned on me and it's going to require a Hell of a lot of charm to get Her her do a 180 for me over the next few days.

You see, I, in the company of a couple of Frenchies, left Istanbul on the 10:00pm Seltvelgrad express (or something like that), destination Sophia. Laurent, Thibaut and myself chatted for a while, wondered if the train would actually even reach the end of Istanbul, or whether indeed Istanbul would ever end, and finally fell asleep around midnight in the comfortable, if not a little chilly, sleeper wagons of the Turkish National Railways.

At 04:00 we arrived at Kapikule and jumped out into the mist. I could smell the Communism, I swear. It was ripe in the air as we crossed the platform, passports in hand, and proceeding in an orderly fashion to the Turkish customs.

Third-to-last in the line, Ahmet asked me why my father's name wasn't in my passport. For those of you who are wondering, in many parts of the world one of the two necessary people present during conception is required to appear in your travel document. Strange, yes. But hey, I'd been asked the same question before, however, it seemed odd this time since Turkey sees thousands of foreigners and I'm sure this guy had seen an Australian passport before. And although I felt certain he probably couldn't sign his own name, I kept it to myself.

I was moved to the end of the line with the resounding word, 'problem'. Jesus. When I was the only thing left in the queue he began to skim through my passport, scanned it, and promptly told me I had overstayed my residency permit.

Except I hadn't, because when I returned to from Spain at the end of August I re-entered on a tourist visa. My residence permit was due to expire so I checked with the issuing office at the airport and took a tourist visa to avoid the need to exit the country within the following three weeks. I thought I was good for ninety days.

Nope. Ahmet hated me on sight. Which is hard to do, I'm sure of it. (God, the guy next to me just asked if I'd heard the world was going to end sometime during December 2012 - they really should start being more selective about who they allow to stay in these International Youth Hostels). Anyway, Ahmet wasn't interested in listening to my tale of woe.

Suddenly, I wanted to extend my hand through the gap in window, grab him by his shirt collar that his mother had undoubtedly ironed for him, and pull him forward so abruptly that his cranium would smash instantly against the bullet proof glass. I envisioned blood, all if it his, covering the linoleum counter as I somehow, after a show of exceeding strength and ruthless brutality, managed to remove his bleeding pulp of a head from the now-lifeless cadaver and kick it far into Bulgarian territory.

I kept my cool. I'm proud of myself. I seethed but remained polite, unmovable. Sometimes it's good to be a Protestant. We may not have glamorous churches or dance very well, but neither do we gesticulate wildly like the rest of the planet when something goes wrong.

Ahmet took one hour to fill out a form that required his name, my name, the date, and the amount of the fine. While he clearly had difficulty using the modern ball-point pen and perhaps it was asking too much to spell his name correctly, again I thought better than to offer help.

It did feel bad to know the entire train was held up because of me, but hey, it's Ahmet they should have been angry with. Even when he filled out the form and I sprinted to another building 300 metres away to pay the fine, I was sent back because because stupido Ahmet hadn't filled the stupido form out correctly.

By that time I was laughing out loud.

My newly discovered enemy of the Turkish customs service stamped my passport. I told him what his mother did in Hell in French and left the building, only to be screamed at as soon as I opened the door.

'Run! run!'

Honestly, Ahmet the spastic takes an hour to ruin my life and I have to run 10 metres to the train... Still, I did at least canter, if not gallop. The Frenchies were almost asleep in their compartment but I made sure I woke them properly to whine a little.

'I told him I have two cats in the apartment and he still wouldn't listen.'

I think the boys needed to sleep.

The next day we arrived in Sophia. The Turkish Embassy was unwilling to help me and I thought, 'you know what, maybe it's time to go to South America.' Then I remembered I had almost no money and that Buenos Aires was maybe dreaming a touch too wildly. I had only two t-shirts, a jumper and three underpants in my backpack, so again, South America was not an intelligent choice here.

And then I discovered a short hour later that what bank balance I had was now out of reach. Despite the fact I specifically called the bank before I left Turkey to ensure I would be able to access funds from machine displaying the Maestro symbol... Well, guess the end of that sentence.

And at this point, it's worth mentioning that Murphy's law was possible first uttered by a Turk. Or at least by someone who had a lot of dealing with a Turk. But then again, I don't know any Turks called Murphy so it might originally have been Mehmet's law, or something similar.

Sophia was lovely and we ate a lot of pork. To pass the time I began to play the role of a spy behind the iron curtain who has to sneak past the authorities. In my head I'd already envisioned how Ahmet the border guard would perish, so I moved on to bloodier scenes involving mostly me fighting and maiming Turkish customs employees. I doubt the film version would be a success, but in my head I was having an award winner.

Less than two days later, with 100 Euro in my underpants and my French friends heading back to Istanbul, on the advice of a friend I headed to Athens. The woman sitting next to me on the bus force-fed me peanuts and finally we arrived at Ammonia, or some such place at six-thirty in the morning.

I felt like rubbish and looked like a big pile of it. I made it to the International Youth Hostel, necessarily located in a seedier Athenian quarter. To be fair, it looks more like Peshawar with a dash of North Africa and Bangladesh thrown in for good measure. Everyone speaks English or French and quite clearly no-one in this neighbourhood is Greek. The restaurants serve halal food and a lot of people are just lurking and leering. I love it and am already thinking of renting an apartment.

I've been twice to the Turkish Embassy, donning a clean shirt on both occasions. I almost had an involuntary bowel movement, when, after explaining my situation, the woman at the counter said,

'Well, Australia is a nice country too, but if I want to go there I have to respect the law and..' By this time, in my head, she was dead from two short, sharp slaps to the temple.

I truly don't think I've done anything wrong. In my life I've done a lot of wrong things but this is not one of them. And what about my cats?

I love Turkey and I adore Istanbul. I've finally managed to get a good grip on the language. I have friends there. My two cats remain ignorant of the whole affair. How are they going to react? God, my apartment contains the last three years of my life and I can't get home.

Now I wait. My pleading email has reached the office of the Vice-Consul and a decision will be made soon.

Turkey, let me back in. Please. I'll be good.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Write a book about this week. No, wait... Write two books...But I want to be one of the characters, ok?

Anonymous said...

i will pray to little baby jesus every day til you get home. he will listen to me, i am a good catholic girl.

and in return, you can buy me some mother fucking mangoes to replace all the ones you ate right out from under me in singapore.

love you.

x princess

James said...

Princess,

I'm in Greece for God sake. Where am I gonna find mangoes?

How about a yiros with extra garlic sauce?

And you're a good Catholic about as much as I'm a good Protestant.

You know, I know it, we both gonna go to Hell...

Anonymous said...

oh a yiros! i might go have one for lunch. then pick up some mangoes on the way home cos they are everywhere around here.

any luck with getting your ass back home??

James said...

My body is still in Athens but my brain left quite some time ago. Can't place its wherabouts at the moment.

Next stop:

a. Sydney, Australia
b. prison (a la Midnight Express)
c. Dubai
d. Belgrade (for more post- Communist hi-jinks)
e. Madrid, or
f. Death in Venice.

Send the yiros. I'm outta cash, time, patience, mangoes and most importantly, charm.

Are you jealous of my life or what?

Anonymous said...

Hi James, that is so weird that they banned you from re-entering. I had exactly the same during the summer. My ikhamet was cancelled and I had no idea, so it came as a surprise when customs told me I was overstaying.
Anyway, I also still had a valid tourist visa, less then 3 months old and in the end they let me go and I could come back without any problems.
I had to make a call to my consulate though to convince Turkish customs.
The only difference was, that they don't hold an entire plane for you, which was a bit of a bugger ;-)
Fingers crossed & I hope they'll let you back in.
regards,
Dagmar

James said...

Thanks Dagmar...

I'm off to Dubai next in my efforts to circumnavigate the planet before returning to Istanbul.

Turkish bureaucracy may be determined, but they have no idea how obstinate and pig-headed I am.

I really hope that I can return. If not, it's up to the dice as to where I land next.

Cheers