I feel this story is so crazy that it deserves a post all on its own.
As you read in my previous post, my digital camera broke and I needed to get a new one. My roommate told me of this place called Media Markt. Their main advertisement is that if you find an electronic price for cheaper, they will match it and pay the difference. So I thought to myself...ok...the Walmart of electronics in Turkey. Sounds like the perfect place for me to find a digital camera. We log onto the website and of course it is all in Turkish. My roommate and I see an address in the bottom and we write it down. He knows sort of where it is but not quite. He tells me which Metrobus stop to get off of and then I'm off.
I started this trip at about 2:15pm. I get off at the bus stop and am not sure where to go. After not getting a response from someone who didn't speak English, I found a guy who could use hand signals and Turkish words I recognized to tell me where to go. It turns out that I got off two stops later than where I should have, so I get back on the bus and go back those two stops. At this point its about 3:15pm and I am clear on the other side of Istanbul.
I find a helpful person and he tells me that I need to go to the dolmuş stop and take a dolmuş to Güneşli (which means sunny in Turkish by the way). I get on the dolmuş and the traffic is absolutely horrendous! It takes me almost an hour to get where I needed to go (which was not that far). On the dolmuş the driver was listening to the radio and was looking for songs he liked. He settled on "Hollaback girl," which I thought was incredbly entertaining! So we finally get to where I need to go and its about a five minute walk (the driver shows me in which direction I should walk). When I get to the building, I ask where the Media Markt is and the receptionist tells me to go to the fourth floor. I ride the elevator up and enter the suite. Fully expecting a store, I see two receptionists. They ask to help me and I tell them I am looking for a camera. By this time its about 4:30 and I found out that my two-hour journey has lead me to their corporate office!
So at this point I had invested so much time, that I was determined to get a camera! I ask them how to get to the nearest store and they tell me the only way is by taxi and that it would cost me 30-35 lira. I don't think so... So I ask them for the location of the closest store to Rumelhisarüstü (my neighborhood) and they tell me the closest one is on the Asian side (the other side of the Bosphorus)! Keep in mind at this point, I had been traveling AWAY from the Bosphorus this entire time!
So the receptionist starts explaining to me how to get there and its too confusing/overwhelming for me. She then tells me that she is going in that direction in 30 minutes and offers for me to go with her. I gladly accept. Then, a co-worker of hers is leaving sooner and offers to take me with her. I get on the company shuttle and it is decided that the driver will take me directly to the store. How wonderful! On the ride over, I find out that this company provides transportation for their employees and gives them a daily stipend for lunch. I thought that was pretty neat.
The drive took over two hours because we left at around 5:30pm. The traffic was terrible. It was stop and go on the interstate. I will never complain about Atlanta traffic again! (Okay...so that's probably a lie...but it's definitely worse here). I finally got to the mall and got a camera. At this point, I was famished and craving American food, so I ate Sbarro (which was cheaper than the Sbarro in the mall back home). Yum!
Then, digital camera in hand, I traveled back to the apartment and got home at about 10:30pm (approx. 8 hours later). Wow!
Wow, sounds like an adventure!
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