Turkey and Romania 2011
Istanbul, Turkey and Bucharest, Romani
Christmas Turkey
December 2011
Happy holidays from Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey and Bucharest, Romania!
I have been to Turkey before and already provided an education on Istanbul, the only city on two continents, and the courteous taxi drivers that always offer you a cigarette before they light up. One item I forgot last time was the Turkish coffee (Motto: It ails what cures you!). If you’ve never had Turkish coffee, you should try some. If you don’t have any, I recommend this recipe: Take a half a tin of Folders, add two teaspoons of water, and cram the mixture into your mouth. Warning: be careful not to add too much water. Seven days from now when you are again able to sleep, be sure to throw out the remainder of the Folders tin so you won’t be tempted to do that again.
A Turkish lady in the office will take the remaining grounds in the Turkish coffee and use them to remove that stubborn marble from your kitchen counter. Oh sorry…I think that was something I hallucinated on day 4 of no sleep. Seriously, a lady in the office will take a person’s empty cup and turn it upside down on the saucer with something personal resting on the upside-down cup bottom. Then after about 5 minutes, she turns the cup over. The grounds have coated the entire inside of the cup with a ghastly brown goo. She then proceeds to read the person’s future by examining the shapes and images the goo forms on the white surface of the cup. I don’t think she is very good. She read my grounds and stated I would have a stressful trip soon and would have a confrontation with an elderly woman.
This was my first trip to Romania. I was not impressed. I asked inside the airport how much a cab ride to downtown should cost. The information desk reported $20-$30. I then step outside and cabbies attack me like they are buzzards and I’m three-day old carrion. I finally negotiated into the first taxi in line and gave him the hotel name. When we pulled up, I was presented with a $50 fare. Then (I stress “then” – a “duh” moment) I asked what the meter said and learned “it didn’t work.” A couple of coworkers later told me that if you pay attention to the type of taxi, you can travel for about $0.30 cents per mile. When I flew back to Turkey two days later, my return trip to the airport cost $12, but I had to pre-argue to ensure the meter was running because he asked me where I was from, then was going to give me the “Special American Rate.” The “Special American Rate” is also referred to as the cab driver retirement plan. Romania is best known for being the home to the real Count Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler, hundreds of years ago. The legacy of that blood-sucking monster is cultivated and kept alive by taxi drivers all over Bucharest.
I once heard someone say, “it’s not the destination as much as the journey.” Maybe so - if you’re being sent to prison. My company has been going through extensive measures to cut costs. So much so that they banned all business class travel for the next couple of months. Before I go too much further, and for the benefit of those not seasoned international travelers, let me give a comparison of Business Class to Coach Class international travel. Imagine riding in a stretch limousine with a television that picks up 200 movies and 100 television shows, a butler that takes your order from a menu with gourmet meals and serves you while you ride, and when you get tired, you can lay down on a flat seat with a pillow and a blanket. That is business class. Now coach class: imagine being kidnapped by Somalian pirates that haven’t bathed or eaten in a week. They throw a bag over your head and if they give you water or food, it is so revolting, it makes you gag. Finally, they stuff you into the glove box of 1967 Volkswagen Beetle and drive for 121 straight hours over rocky terrain avoiding all roads and restrooms. So, back to my company banning all business class to save money. This created a problem when I scheduled my trip to Ankara, Turkey with the trip to Bucharest Romania in the middle. What caused the trouble was out of 36 hours of travel and 10 separate flight legs, one 45 minute leg from Istanbul to Bucharest on the approved airline, Turkish Airways, ended up where business class actually cost $72 less than coach class due to the flight being full. This caused a paradox with our Travel Agent. (A paradox is not two physicians.) The policy says everyone MUST travel coach AND we MUST choose the lowest fare. However, they kept looking until they found a flight on Romania Air (Motto: 2 out 3 arrive!) in coach class at a lower price.
So, last Thursday, I show up at the airport at 6:00 am. The check-in agent for Turkish Airways tells me they can only check my luggage to Istanbul and can’t give me the boarding pass from Istanbul to Bucharest because they have never heard of Romania Air and don’t have it in their system. No worries here – I will pick up my luggage, go outside security, to the counter, check in for the flight, clear customs, clear security, all in one hour and 35 minutes. Because we all know all flights are always on time. Except my flight from Ankara was delayed. Then it missed the slot time for the gate in Istanbul and had to park remotely. In Syria. The bus finally arrived and drove us 58 miles to the terminal. At least the 58 miles was in a straight line and I didn’t end up 78 feet from where I started after driving 58 miles like the buses in Paris at Charles de Gaulle Bladder Airport.
So, after they finally deliver all the luggage by a single crippled mountain burro from the plane, I have 45 minutes until my flight leaves for Bucharest. I take off as fast as I can from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. Thankfully there were no trains or buses connecting the two terminals, so I was able to get a robust cardiac workout. Then I check the board for the 175 check in counters (Istanbul is self-reported to be the 8th busiest airport in the world!) and…there’s…no…(insert expletives here!)…Romania Air as there is on my itinerary. But at the far end of the terminal, there is a TAROM with the same flight number. Those pranksters at the Travel Agency! No wonder no one knows about Romania Air, it is actually TAROM! When I found the single counter allotted to the airline and saw the 2 out of 3 arrive motto, I knew they were the right ones. I tried to ask the counter agent, who was sitting in the crowded terminal at the only check-in station without a single person in his line if I could still make flight 262. He just shrugs and grabs my passport and itinerary. He is completely unresponsive to all my questions, so I figure he doesn’t speak English. Or, he works for our Travel Agency. I got rid of my luggage, grabbed the boarding pass and sprinted to the immigration lines. When no one was looking, I took out one 85-year-old grandma that almost got in line before me. It simplified things when I only had to kick her walker out from under her. It also dropped two additional suckers out of the line when they stopped to help her up.
I made it to my gate with mere seconds remaining…only to find out the flight had been delayed. Evidently, in Turkish “DELAYED” translates as “FINAL BOARDING CALL” in English on the departure status boards stationed throughout the terminal. No kidding! At least I got a whole bench to myself. When I sat down, two families moved seats. It may be because I looked like I had just fled the scene of multiple crimes. In actual fact, I’m not sure the old lady incident was even a crime.
Anyway the moral of this story is…All of this entertainment was only available because the Company’s diligent efforts to stop vagrants like me from sneaking into the front of the bus! On a single 45 minute leg. I now have gray hair, a permanent limp, and a shorter life span (an even shorter life span if a certain 85-year-old Grandma succeeds in hunting me down and acting on any of those threats she screamed), but the important thing is that $72 savings spread over 320 million shares! Maybe I should send this to Investor Relations for a press release to outline our diligent cost saving efforts!?
I finally made it all the way to Bucharest relieved that the worst was over and stepped out to catch a taxi….
Just two more days in Ankara and then I’m headed home. I hope everyone has a great Christmas and I hope 2012 is the best year yet!
All the best!
Keith
My question for the day: Why is it that when someone is about to die, they are “terminal” and the place where we climb into huge pieces of metal and rocket into thin air is also called a “terminal”?