Advertisement
Published: March 20th 2024
How many thousands of turkish lira do you need for a holiday ? We had little idea as most of our holidays had been in Europe and we had with the exception of Croatia and Denmark used the euro. A trip to pick some up gave us a good idea . It seemed we did not need that many . The Turkish Lira was so devalued the locals preferred to be paid in American dollars, English pounds or euros . We had a stack load of euros left over from France last year . So we changed a few pounds £85 to lira just to tide us over and worked out meals could be paid for in Istanbul in euros and it would be easy to change euros to liras if we needed them in the hotel .
We had checked our airport bags . Going business class we have a more generous allowance. For five days though we probably won't need that many clothes . The bags though were a touch heavy so we ordered new lighter ones. The next item to be purchased were small bags to wrap round our waists . Just enough room to carry cash,
passports and phones. We seemed to be buying things we never thought of before . 17 days to go . The tickets information had come through and we booked our seats . Me a window seat and Glenn an aisle . Got them wrong way round for the return trip but we can swap seats. We spent the next few days checking the seats were correct and cancelling the airport transfer from the airport to the hotel as we read scathing reviews about them. Rebooked a second one which had better reviews . Something went wrong with the booking - just our luck - but the guy who ran the company changed the details for us and corrected the odd mistake . I swear it was not my fault . Phone call received to tell us the flight home was moved 5 minutes earlier . I guess we will do some worrying that the transfer fails to pick us up or turns up late . Are we worrying unnecessarily ? Is it an age thing when you expect things to go wrong ? The next thing that went belly up was a call from the agent to tell us that
the seats we had chosen had been moved and we were now sitting in aisle seats behind each other . No idea what went wrong there as we never picked those seats . Changed them back and guess for the next 17 days I will be checking and rechecking the seat allocation . Monday sorted . We now start to look at Tuesday . The Blue Mosque , the Archealogical museum and a trip on the Bosphorous . The list grows - the Galata Tower , the city walls walk , the Asian side . Will we have enough time or will we be running round like headless chickens ?
We went to the football to try to take our minds off the planning . Not easy as all the time we return to pencilling in printing the boarding tickets . Making alternative plans should the transfer go pear shaped . The airport is 24 km from our hotel . On a good day it takes 45 mins to get there . On a bad one one and a half hours . More things to fill our minds with.
The new sponsor has been appointed for the temporary
stand . Four Walls American Whiskey . The sign looks impressive . The company part owned by our co-owner . Mr and Mrs Met together with Philly Phanatic turned up for a photo shoot at the ground before the game . The mural called the Boss showing our manager who may be out of a job shortly has gone up at the Turf Pub . A second one designed by the Pencilcraftsman will be going up soon . I was interviewed by a guy from Leominster FC and he told me I would be on his blog . He lied . I was not there at all . American voices everywhere . We talked to a couple from Dayton Ohio and another couple from Austin Texas .
On our seats scarves donated by United Airlines one of our sponsors . The seats looked good draped with the scarves . We looked pretty good in them too. A few hours not thinking about the holiday was what we needed . Plenty of time to come back to it and plan some more .
And then if the day could not get more surreal we found ourselves face to face with Dixie the Dragon produced by two young lads in their grandads smithy. Fundraising for the local hospice it was doing the rounds of Wrexham starting with the Turf Hotel and the Racecourse Ground . Oh and Dixie was named after a famous player of ours Dixie McNeil .
Advertisement
Tot: 0.047s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0272s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
jackieandchris2011
Jackie
lIstambul !
It will be brilliant!! We went there, before I started the blog and missed out Tokapi Palace!! There really is a lot to see and experience there!! Wonderful place! And you sound so organised!! Enjoy!!