Rejoice with us! - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Sep 30, 2005
We have a house! After two weeks in the hotel looking at flats and rooms in sharehouses that were never suitable, we have found a wonderful place in a suburb called Nisantasi (Nish-AHN-tasher). The area is known for being a fancy shopping place, and rather chic area of Istanbul. Turkish people are all very impressed when we say we've moved in here. One friend instantly asked "near the Armani shop?" which gives you some idea of the type of place it is! Of course, it doesn't look it in our street, but it is a bit nicer than some other areas we've seen. The flat itself is the largest flat we have seen in Turkey so far, with 2 bedrooms, a study, a garden and an enormous living room. It also just happens to have a washing machine, dishwasher, satellite tv, and, more importantly, internet and a wireless hub. We're sharing it with one Australian woman, who just happens to be going back to Australia in early February. She'll be away 3 months, during which time we have the flat to ourselves. Very glad to be out of the hotel and have access to a kitchen and laundry again. It's been a while, and eating in restaurants and handwashing clothes was really getting a bit boring! We had some trouble leaving the hotel though - there was a bit of a dispute over the payment. It's all way to complicated and boring to explain, but there was a little matter of 75YTL (which is just under AU$75) which the school thought we should pay, and we thought was the hotel overcharging us. The confusion was all due to a little discount the school was getting, which the hotel was trying to make us pay. It took more than an hour of stressful arguing before I worked out that if I asked my Director of studies (an English woman who speaks turkish) to explain it to all the turks I was dealing with in turkish, then maybe it would be sorted. And low and behold it was. I think I really need to learn turkish. And properly enough to argue with hotel morons.