Tag Archives: Solo Female Istanbul

That Time I Got Scammed (?) in Istanbul

I don’t know if i technically got scammed.  But here is my story.

On my last full day, I had planned to get up at the crack of dawn and be walking into the Blue Mosque the second it opened.   The night before, I had a horrible night’s sleep.  I was woken up in the middle of the night by a text that kept me up for the rest of the night.

I still manage to get up and out.  I get to the Mosque and I am an hour early because I do not know how to correctly research opening hours.

It is really hot. I am really sun burned. I am so tired.

I sit down on a bench outside the Mosque to rest and collect my thoughts.

A man comes up to me and offers to shine my shoes.  I say “NO”  I am not even wearing shoes, I am wearing cheapo sneakers that are getting thrown out as soon as I get home.   Despite me saying “NO”, he then says “just let me brush off the dirt”.   Now I get mad.  He is already down and brushing the dirt off my sneakers.  All I want to do is sit here in silence and rest and go into my own little world where I figure out the things in my personal life that are now running rampant through my head.

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Bus Ride From Veliko Tarnovo to Istanbul – Squat Toilets, Spiders, Smuggling and Depeche Mode…Wait…WHAT?

Last transport of my trip – overnight bus from Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey.  This was quite the trip.  Finding out information about this journey before leaving home was nearly impossible.  I could never figure out where I was supposed to leave from, Veliko Tarnovo has two bus stations.  I was able to get some bus company names, but they had no internet presence.

There is a train, but the schedules I came up with were so beyond contradictory.  I also found a bunch of websites saying the train wasn’t in operation right now because of construction.  I would really prefer to take the train but all of this research getting me nowhere was really making my head spin.

So I left the USA without having any clue how I was going to be doing the last leg of this trip.

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