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Archive for June, 2005

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Touching Down In Turkey: Istanbul and Ankara

Tuesday, June 7th, 2005

I’d had some difficult with my flight to Istanbul on the Bruxelles end, and unfortunately it didn’t end there. The flight touched down not at Istanbul’s main, Ataturk airport, but at Sabhia Gocken, a different one some 50km east of the city, which catered mostly to package tours and which was newer than my guidebook (this is what you get when you try to find an English-language guidebook to Turkey in Brussels in two hours.) I’d expected this might be the case, but having expected it didn’t help me to deal with the eventuality.

I’d arrived in the middle of nowhere, at an airport where most arrivals are whisked away to hotels on pre-booked buses, and with no idea of how to get into the city.

Thankfully a group of young people (two Turks and a Bosnian who lived in Istanbul) saw me doing my lost puppy dog impression and explained that while there was an infrequent airport bus, it would cost only slightly more to be the fourth person in their taxi to the centre of Istanbul. Done.
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Bill and Llew’s Excellent Adventure: Maastricht and Bruxelles

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

I’ll begin by apologizing for the title. But I just couldn’t resist.

When we last left our heroes, they were standing on the platform at Delft station waiting for a train that would take them in the direction of Maastricht.

Eric had printed out a nice routing guide for us that listed which trains to take, where to make connections, the times of the trains, and even gave several different options for how to get there. It all looked so easy. LOOKED.

I don’t even know if I have the energy to write about the trip to Maastricht… It took us about seven hours (as opposed to the four it was supposed to.) We took… I think six different trains. Due to scheduling problems, un-announced track maintenance work and general confusion (not least stemming from Dutch announcements on board) we visited the same station three times before finally getting to our destination. On the whole, it was fortunate that we had plenty of beer and stroopwaffels. They almost made the trip tolerable, but at one brief, terrible moment (when the near empty train stopped ten minutes out of the station in the middle of nowhere then reversed directions and returned to the station) we had to resort to the genever.
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So. You Want to Read About a Wedding In Holland…

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
Just in case you're wondering, the title of this entry comes from the invitation to my friends Eric and Diane's wedding, which was the prime reason for my stop in Holland. My longest air trip since crossing the Pacific in August ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Netherlands & Belgium | 2 Comments »