Clear blue skies [mostly]
Oh. Yeah.
I headed south today, incidentally flying on an airline that Holland will no longer let fly land in a Dutch airport -- due to safety reasons (again, Mom, hope you're not reading this...). I am in what can be classed as a Beach Resort (witness the cruise ship in the harbor and strikingly close proximity to Greece), and it seems ok. Though, I haven't walked around much -- just showered, had something to eat and am now enjoying the coolness of an internet cafe. It's really hot right now, and I want to wait a bit more before exposing my sensitive Irish skin to this sun. Even with sunblock and an existing tan, it's still pretty intense out there. I *do* want to enjoy the sun, and not have to sit in my hotel room the whole time because I got massively burnt on the first afternoon here...
On to the trip here. The flight was fine and the plane looked fine. Don't know the exact details of why Holland is anti-Onur, but there you go.
I also think I have about the worst luck with arriving in some places. On the way to Varna (and I'll repeat this story in case I missed blogging it when it happened), I made a mistake with the train connections, and ended up choosing to take a 45 euro taxi ride from Ruse to Varna. An expensive little trip, as the train ticket would have cost about $4... But, given the alternative of staying in Ruse and losing the next day because of the train times (6am or 4pm), I opted for the taxi trip. Expensive, but the rest of Bulgaria was so cheap, it kind of evened out in my favor anyway.
Arriving in Plovdiv at almost 10pm, I took a taxi from the train station to the hostel. Mostly, because I knew it was a couple kilometers and I did not have a map -- so walking was not an option. I couldn't see the meter clearly in the cab (thank you stick shift), and it turned out he didn't turn the meter on. This is always a recipe for a scam. I was charged 8 Leva, which is only about $3 or so, so theoretically it wasn't too bad. Until someone and I took a taxi to the train station, and that fare was 1.80 Leva...
And then there was today. To backtrack to yesterday, I was at a travel agency getting information and plane tickets to my current destination. While I was originally going to take the bus here, I ended up flying because it wasn't that much more expensive, and it saved a great deal of time and added comfort. However, contemporary highway robbery is alive and can be found at the Izmir airport.
The travel agency rep made it sound like there were regular and frequent bus shuttles from the airport to Kasadasi. This is not true. The only way out of the airport was seemingly in a taxi or by stowing away on an obvious tour bus going to an unknown destination. I couldn't even see a bus stop for a regular city bus. In the end, I paid 80 lira (about $58) for a 60km taxi ride. Even to just go to the bus station would have been 50 lira...
I will certainly be researching cheaper ways to get back to the airport for my return trip.
After the taxi ride today, it just goes to show the adage of bad things happening in threes. It was the third thing to go awry in well under 24 hours. It started last night with an asshole of an Australian getting all pissy about the overflow sleeping arrangements for the hostel (a story about accomodation that I won't go in to full detail here), that ended up with him waking me up at 2.45am, him trying to berate me for something not my fault and something I did that was not done with malicious intent, and had conversation bits like this:
Me: [not saying anything while he rants and strokes his own broken self-esteem by spewing vitriol at me]
Him: Don't you have anything to say?
Me: No. There's nothing I can imagine saying that will make any difference to your view. It's pretty clear you've already made up your mind about how you feel.
Him: You have a point.
It ended with him doing what I suggested in the first minute of his self-serving rant (yes, I am still residually pissed and outraged) and him saying:
"Well what I can expect, you're American."
Oh, the torrent of retorts that I bit my tongue from saying then and the acts of backpacker terrorism I considered this morning while he was still sleeping...
The second act of awry was the oaf in the seat next to me, on the plane, spilling half his cup of coffee on my leg. I'm thankful that: 1. the coffee was served lukewarm; 2. I was wearing dark jeans that already need to go to the laundry.
Though, all is well now. I'm ensconced in a nice hotel (double bed!!), doted on by hotel staff (again, behold the power of a smile, red hair and a strappy top), and am in a lovely, hot locale on the Aegean coast.
And to think one of the Mancunians that read my blog said that it was all so nice, and that there wasn't anything harsh written. [I told him to check out the March/April archives...] It's mostly that I don't take too personally anything awry that happens these days. But when it comes in threes...I can't help but be a little more absorbent to the bad stuff. But like I said, I'm in the Town of Sun and Beaches and Very Close Proximity to Greece, so how can I still be upset? The Answer: I'm not.
Finally, it's off to explore this place a bit more properly [than what I saw from the taxi] and get some more sun.
I headed south today, incidentally flying on an airline that Holland will no longer let fly land in a Dutch airport -- due to safety reasons (again, Mom, hope you're not reading this...). I am in what can be classed as a Beach Resort (witness the cruise ship in the harbor and strikingly close proximity to Greece), and it seems ok. Though, I haven't walked around much -- just showered, had something to eat and am now enjoying the coolness of an internet cafe. It's really hot right now, and I want to wait a bit more before exposing my sensitive Irish skin to this sun. Even with sunblock and an existing tan, it's still pretty intense out there. I *do* want to enjoy the sun, and not have to sit in my hotel room the whole time because I got massively burnt on the first afternoon here...
On to the trip here. The flight was fine and the plane looked fine. Don't know the exact details of why Holland is anti-Onur, but there you go.
I also think I have about the worst luck with arriving in some places. On the way to Varna (and I'll repeat this story in case I missed blogging it when it happened), I made a mistake with the train connections, and ended up choosing to take a 45 euro taxi ride from Ruse to Varna. An expensive little trip, as the train ticket would have cost about $4... But, given the alternative of staying in Ruse and losing the next day because of the train times (6am or 4pm), I opted for the taxi trip. Expensive, but the rest of Bulgaria was so cheap, it kind of evened out in my favor anyway.
Arriving in Plovdiv at almost 10pm, I took a taxi from the train station to the hostel. Mostly, because I knew it was a couple kilometers and I did not have a map -- so walking was not an option. I couldn't see the meter clearly in the cab (thank you stick shift), and it turned out he didn't turn the meter on. This is always a recipe for a scam. I was charged 8 Leva, which is only about $3 or so, so theoretically it wasn't too bad. Until someone and I took a taxi to the train station, and that fare was 1.80 Leva...
And then there was today. To backtrack to yesterday, I was at a travel agency getting information and plane tickets to my current destination. While I was originally going to take the bus here, I ended up flying because it wasn't that much more expensive, and it saved a great deal of time and added comfort. However, contemporary highway robbery is alive and can be found at the Izmir airport.
The travel agency rep made it sound like there were regular and frequent bus shuttles from the airport to Kasadasi. This is not true. The only way out of the airport was seemingly in a taxi or by stowing away on an obvious tour bus going to an unknown destination. I couldn't even see a bus stop for a regular city bus. In the end, I paid 80 lira (about $58) for a 60km taxi ride. Even to just go to the bus station would have been 50 lira...
I will certainly be researching cheaper ways to get back to the airport for my return trip.
After the taxi ride today, it just goes to show the adage of bad things happening in threes. It was the third thing to go awry in well under 24 hours. It started last night with an asshole of an Australian getting all pissy about the overflow sleeping arrangements for the hostel (a story about accomodation that I won't go in to full detail here), that ended up with him waking me up at 2.45am, him trying to berate me for something not my fault and something I did that was not done with malicious intent, and had conversation bits like this:
Me: [not saying anything while he rants and strokes his own broken self-esteem by spewing vitriol at me]
Him: Don't you have anything to say?
Me: No. There's nothing I can imagine saying that will make any difference to your view. It's pretty clear you've already made up your mind about how you feel.
Him: You have a point.
It ended with him doing what I suggested in the first minute of his self-serving rant (yes, I am still residually pissed and outraged) and him saying:
"Well what I can expect, you're American."
Oh, the torrent of retorts that I bit my tongue from saying then and the acts of backpacker terrorism I considered this morning while he was still sleeping...
The second act of awry was the oaf in the seat next to me, on the plane, spilling half his cup of coffee on my leg. I'm thankful that: 1. the coffee was served lukewarm; 2. I was wearing dark jeans that already need to go to the laundry.
Though, all is well now. I'm ensconced in a nice hotel (double bed!!), doted on by hotel staff (again, behold the power of a smile, red hair and a strappy top), and am in a lovely, hot locale on the Aegean coast.
And to think one of the Mancunians that read my blog said that it was all so nice, and that there wasn't anything harsh written. [I told him to check out the March/April archives...] It's mostly that I don't take too personally anything awry that happens these days. But when it comes in threes...I can't help but be a little more absorbent to the bad stuff. But like I said, I'm in the Town of Sun and Beaches and Very Close Proximity to Greece, so how can I still be upset? The Answer: I'm not.
Finally, it's off to explore this place a bit more properly [than what I saw from the taxi] and get some more sun.
posted by Shana @ 9:32 AM
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