A bright and early start on Monday morning to get to the Uzbek Embassy in good time, this happens to be an hour and a half away from the centre of Istanbul. We arrived half an hour early and were handed the visa forms to fill in, this always takes longer than you'd think as we have to find the most appealing thing to say so they let us in the country, our mode of transport does not appear on any of our forms! 10 o'clock came and went and we were still waiting there until 1030 when they finally decided to open to the 'masses' of people (5) who were waiting to hand in their forms in the hope of gaining a visa.
Getting the Uzbek one passed with out a hitch, he even managed a quick smile, before he told us to come back on Friday to pick it up this was not what we wanted to hear but we just smiled and carried on. We raced across town to try and get to the Azerbaijan Consul in the alotted time. The chap there was not quite so helpful. We asked if we could apply for a visa and he said no and then proceeded to give us a little lecture on why we couldn't get one with out a Letter of Invitation. The bottom line being, we have to get one for your country so, haha, we are going to make it even more difficult for you to get into ours...He revelled in his little power trip, and the frustrating thing is the rule only changed at the beginning of April.
The next day we were up early again, and I adorned my headscarf ready for my trip to the Iranian Consul to pick up the visa. This was a source of much worry for both of us, there was even talk of getting a faux wedding photo to try and ease the strain when we are there. But this was thankfully ditched as an idea. We went twice to the Consul only to realise that the life of a Consulate worker gets better and better, they not only celebrate their own countries festivals but they celebrate the countries' they're in as well. So the Iranians had a day off to celebrate a Turkish holiday. This was our third visit to try and collect this visa.
The rest of the day was spent seeing more sights. We took a boat up the Golden Horn to visit the seat of the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate. This is the most important in Greek Orthodoxy. We arrived at prime time to witness a beautiful service that was all sung and really brought to life the icons which decorated the Church. Afterwards the priest, who was a tall man with a long grey pony tail and a rather pointed face, raced around with his camera, click, click, clicking away taking photos of the Church like a true tourist, and there we stood not taking any pictures for fear it would offend. This gave us licence to take as many as we liked.
A brief shopping trip to the bizaar is worth mentioning for the Japanese tourist we saw there. He was haggling hard for this tiny little musical instrument, breaking the seller down by another 5 lira (2 pounds 30) and not giving him any room for manouevre. When he finally agreed to the rock bottom price, the Japanese man drew out a 100 lira note (50 pounds) to pay for something worth 15 lira. I wish I had understood the curses uttered by the seller!!
Our fourth attempt at the Iranian consul was successful, we had to do alot of photo copying and more money was paid out, but we left our passports there over night and the next day we picked them up with a chiny new visa in it! It takes up a whole page, we were jubilant at the sight of them, and a bit apprehensive as it seems all the more real that we are going. I spent the afternoon in the Hammam to relax although there was panic there as I thought I had made a faux pas by not wearing anything, and misinterpreting the Turkish lady at the door, thankfully I hadn't as after they wash you they give you a pair of new knickers to wear around the baths, at first it was just me and a liberal looking old lady with nothing on and I felt a little self conscious to say the least...
Hagia Sophia was the last thing on our tourist list to see before we left and we gave it the time it deserves. The most incredible structure, built in 532 first as a Christian building with the most beautifully detailed mosiacs in Gold and then changed to a Mosque on my birthday in
the 1400s. It is quite extraordinary to see Christian icons next to Islamic text and tiling...It is worth coming to Istanbul just to see this although it is a shame it cannot be used as a place of worship anymore.
Friday was spent running around trying to sort everything out for our, much delayed, departure. And my nerves start to build!
Getting the Uzbek one passed with out a hitch, he even managed a quick smile, before he told us to come back on Friday to pick it up this was not what we wanted to hear but we just smiled and carried on. We raced across town to try and get to the Azerbaijan Consul in the alotted time. The chap there was not quite so helpful. We asked if we could apply for a visa and he said no and then proceeded to give us a little lecture on why we couldn't get one with out a Letter of Invitation. The bottom line being, we have to get one for your country so, haha, we are going to make it even more difficult for you to get into ours...He revelled in his little power trip, and the frustrating thing is the rule only changed at the beginning of April.
The next day we were up early again, and I adorned my headscarf ready for my trip to the Iranian Consul to pick up the visa. This was a source of much worry for both of us, there was even talk of getting a faux wedding photo to try and ease the strain when we are there. But this was thankfully ditched as an idea. We went twice to the Consul only to realise that the life of a Consulate worker gets better and better, they not only celebrate their own countries festivals but they celebrate the countries' they're in as well. So the Iranians had a day off to celebrate a Turkish holiday. This was our third visit to try and collect this visa.
The rest of the day was spent seeing more sights. We took a boat up the Golden Horn to visit the seat of the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate. This is the most important in Greek Orthodoxy. We arrived at prime time to witness a beautiful service that was all sung and really brought to life the icons which decorated the Church. Afterwards the priest, who was a tall man with a long grey pony tail and a rather pointed face, raced around with his camera, click, click, clicking away taking photos of the Church like a true tourist, and there we stood not taking any pictures for fear it would offend. This gave us licence to take as many as we liked.
A brief shopping trip to the bizaar is worth mentioning for the Japanese tourist we saw there. He was haggling hard for this tiny little musical instrument, breaking the seller down by another 5 lira (2 pounds 30) and not giving him any room for manouevre. When he finally agreed to the rock bottom price, the Japanese man drew out a 100 lira note (50 pounds) to pay for something worth 15 lira. I wish I had understood the curses uttered by the seller!!
Our fourth attempt at the Iranian consul was successful, we had to do alot of photo copying and more money was paid out, but we left our passports there over night and the next day we picked them up with a chiny new visa in it! It takes up a whole page, we were jubilant at the sight of them, and a bit apprehensive as it seems all the more real that we are going. I spent the afternoon in the Hammam to relax although there was panic there as I thought I had made a faux pas by not wearing anything, and misinterpreting the Turkish lady at the door, thankfully I hadn't as after they wash you they give you a pair of new knickers to wear around the baths, at first it was just me and a liberal looking old lady with nothing on and I felt a little self conscious to say the least...
Hagia Sophia was the last thing on our tourist list to see before we left and we gave it the time it deserves. The most incredible structure, built in 532 first as a Christian building with the most beautifully detailed mosiacs in Gold and then changed to a Mosque on my birthday in
the 1400s. It is quite extraordinary to see Christian icons next to Islamic text and tiling...It is worth coming to Istanbul just to see this although it is a shame it cannot be used as a place of worship anymore.Friday was spent running around trying to sort everything out for our, much delayed, departure. And my nerves start to build!
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