“Turkey 🇹🇷 ~The Good News and Not So Good News”

• October 3, 2020
• By Pen
• 8 Comments

The good news is we are safe and healthy, and back on the Europe side of Turkey, in Istanbul, which we happen to love, but……

…..The not so good news is a double-whammy, which only 2020 can dole out.

We promised to keep it real, on our full-time adventures, so here we go. Firstly, without divulging too much personal info, we learned at the end of last month a good chunk of our retirement income has developed a “glitch.” The glitch caused a stop payment! No warning, not letters, no messages; nothing. How strange? Its all gone smoothly since the beginning, so, VERY!

We made contact with a live human of the “powers that be,” and lodged our complaint.  What we were told was not accurate at all, so now everybody is confused. It’s a mess. Now, we have to formally go through the steps to correct the inaccuracies and are waiting for paperwork to arrive, so we can begin to get matters cleared up and reimbursements received. BUT, how long this will take. No clue!

We live within our means always, and we will continue to do so. What does this look like? Well, for now, we have found a room to let in a really cool part of the Balat district, by a really nice landlord. We have all our needs met, and at a budget we can still handle.

Secondly, the plan was to go to Austria, on Sunday. We had decided to go ahead and still visit for a few months in the EU. Austria is still open, and we had plane tickets purchased. Then, I got a weird message that our flight could not be fulfilled and to look for a refund. WHAT? When I went online to book other tickets (right away) the prices for the same flights had doubled! No direct flight, anymore, either, but instead, now a ten hour flight or more with layovers for a 2.5 flight. I can’t justify over a thousand dollars for the tickets…. not just now, but ever, really. Is it the last minute ticket purchase? Im not sure, because the purchase I did make was with within a few days of departure; though that schedule flight went away. I will now experiment with what buying tickets in advance looks like and see if it makes a difference.

We looked into going to Pakistan, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan; all on our list of desired visits, but same issue with overpriced airfare, and closed borders in some cases. PLUS, we may have to leave Turkey for another country, nearby, and stay for ten days or two weeks, elsewhere, before being allowed in another country, because, apparently Turkey is on “the list” of countries; “IF visited in the last ten days, one can not enter their country” kind of thing, which makes zero sense, because out of the seven Balkan countries we recently visited, Turkey is the only country that it was law to wear a mask (all over the country) .

With the airlines struggling so much  through the COVID months, we wonder if the price of airfare is starting to skyrocket. We heard this might happen…the same with lodging costs. We also know the tourist season is ending, and this is a game-changer with border closures and winter time coming on. Is there fear of a second wave? Time will tell.

Tomorrow, now that we found a place to stay, and while we still have the rental car, we will go to a supermarket to stock up on essentials, fill our SIM cards up, get more cash at an ATM, unload groceries back in our room, then we will return the car back to the airport; only we won’t be boarding a plane…….ho-hum 😌

We are booked in our room till mid October and hope to know more by then. This is such a beautiful time of the year to be traveling, it is very difficult to be grounded right now. If we knew how to set up a “GOFundMe”account, we would! 🤪 We did get ourselves set up in a favorite whimsical district of Istanbul with lots of interesting shops and lots of people-watching opportunities. We will continue to get our exercise, explore and enjoy the weather, here, and though we have adventured in Istanbul, thoroughly, in our past visits, it’s one of our favorite places, and it is always interesting. There is a good metro, the food is very good and the people are very nice.

Life happens, no matter where you are, or what you are doing. There is no escape! This is fact. BUT, we have each other everyday, and that is a blessing!  We will stay positive and see how it goes. It could be far worse, as anybody knows. Sometimes its just not about OUR timing at all.

No, we have no plans on going back home, either. Luckily, our Turkey Visa is good for 90 days, so mid December gives us time, if the “delay” is ongoing.
In the meantime, we have time to get our archives filled up on our blog website of all our travels, before we started our blog; which was only a year ago. It would appear our blog doesn’t work right, but the truth is its works great, only we never have time to put in our past travels (of almost 20 years) because we are always so busy with our current travel blogging, and can barely keep that up! We are also writing our books, so the down time is good for that, too. 

But hey! We aren’t getting any younger, either! We have places to go and thing to see!