The Simple Things

There are a lot of things we take for granted at home. The fact that there are post offices nearby, that you can drive across a bridge without being fined.

I've discovered that there are 3 postboxes in Old Town and no one can tell about any other in Istanbul (and I mean the whole of Istanbul). Writing a postcard is not as simple as dropping in the postbox. I took a tram and had to ask for directions into the middle of the Grand Bazaar, then queue to hand in a postcard that they put in a pile for sending. I think I'd stick to email at this point. I hope my mother will appreciate my effort though and the IT guys at the Maths Inst in Oxford.

One of the oddest things about Istanbul is the commuter crowd. They commute to work long distances and its cheaper to take a car than ride public transport and park the car out of the dense village/town areas. If you live on the asian side, you drive across 1 of 2 bridges that span the Bosphorus and instead of a toll gate, you have a thing fitted to the car and you place credits on it which are deducted with each trip across. Cool system, unless you don't have one. At this point if you drive across, you get fined. The only weird part is that no one can tell european side people where to get one fitted. My flight out is on the asian side, so i'm going by taxis. My first holiday taxis trip. The person probably doesn't speak english so I can't even say 'Follow that car' for fun!