I was arranging to get together with Elvira, a Romanian woman, who I had met an Internations event earlier in the week. Her home is in Austria however she's working on some HR issues for a large Turkish oil company on contract.
Internations is an ex-pat site (people who choose to leave their motherland). Having said that the majority of members in Istanbul are Turkish. I'm not sure where the idea is behind that - some people have told me it's so they can practice their English. Mostly I thought they were talking amongst themselves but of course that doesn't necessarily imply they were talking Turkish.
It was my first (May note: and only so far) event with them. There were some interesting stories passed around from previous events. One I particularly recall was about a woman from Singapore. Now coming from NZ I assumed this meant she was Asian but she wasn't.
Apparently at an earlier event there was a lull in conversation at which point she decided to through her 2 cents in and said "Hey, I'd just like everyone to know that I'm up for 'one night stands'". You can guess at the deadly silence that produced. I mean - what can you say after that!?
Elvira told me she had arranged to go shopping with some workmates to the famous 5000-odd shop Grand Bazaar (don't tell the Turks that the one in Bangkok has more shops. I have to admit though that the Turkish one is way classier!). They way she said it I got the feeling that boys weren't allowed or she was worried I might get bored. Au contraire!
I promptly invited myself along and suggested I Elvira, Duygu and Gamze near the bazaar. They were travelling by car but I was sufficiently close to walk across the water into Sultanamet.
I arrived early not knowing how long the walk would take which was a bit of a bummer as in direct contrast to the first few days of balmy weather it was freezing. In fact it was so cold that I felt that lack of any shelter would mean that my internals would freeze up and stop functioning. So what did I do? I dived into the nearest mosque of course! It wasn't as much of a reprieve as you might think but was a lot better than facing the fresh sea breezes.
After some tickety-booing and "You come here." versus "No you come here!" we eventually met up. If Elvira's workmates hadn't been local it would have been quite a mission to find each other.
It turns out our local guides were quite "high society". What I mean is that they weren't short of a penny. And luckily for us they were absolute experts in how to work the bazaar shopkeepers.
All-in-all we spent 6½ hours there which was great fun. Elvira was the only one there ostensibly to shop however by the end of the day I was the only one not to have bought anything. And whilst Elvira spent the most, Gamze had outdone her in the number of items bought.
We started off by going to jacket and handbag shops where Duygu, the lead guide, knew the owners. When I say "knew" I'm meaning from frequency of visits rather than a personal acquaintance - although here it's hard to distinguish the difference when it comes to business sometimes.
Without specifically asking i.e. just from observing there appears to be an immense number of steps to the buying process:
- greet the owner as though he's your long lost cousin (you're his best customer after all aren't you?)
- be grandly welcomed in
- rather than look at the merchandise offered to the tourists you are taken up two flights of stairs to a private viewing of "special items". Now just on this thought you have to get a picture of these places in your mind. They are absolutely tiny! I mean people have bathrooms bigger than these shops. So it's definitely only one-way traffic on the tight spiral stairs
- there are no prices on any of the items of course
- the owner then pulls random items off the shelf to entice the shopper and a fairly lengthy discussion takes place. About what I can't say exactly
In the end I felt sorry for the guy. Duygu did such a good job on him that a handbag that had started out at TL 400 was finally sold for TL 160 (NZ$ 120). Now that sounds about right with bargaining but I swear he was crying when he handed over the handbag. He'd clearly and I felt honestly said earlier that TL 180 was his rock bottom price.
- after the selection is narrowed down to a few items the haggling begins
- and then what do we do? We leave of course lol
- this is to check out the other shops and also in our case we stopped for some lunch
- then we return to the place with the best bag or best price and recommence haggling
Actually I take back an earlier comment. Something to bear in mind is that with the locals they start at a more reasonable amount. Had it been a tourist he probably would have started at TL 500-600.
I was surprised at how roughly dressed the sellers in the handbag shops were given a) the price of the items and b) in Turkey even the bulldozer driver wears a jacket and shirt.
Duygu was often haggling in English so we got to hear a bit. One particular phrase I went something like this:
Seller: "Well that one I will give you a special price - TL 450."
Dugyu:"OK. I heard TL 400."Brilliant.
Initially prices are often quotes in Euros. Personally I believe this is either: a) to shock you - if you understand the currency or b) to make the figure sound small - if you don't.
The girls would spend half an hour debating the pros and cons of each item: colour, length, style, shape, is the strap long enough? does it go with my other clothes, will it mix-and-match well?, does my bum look fat? Nothing unusual there.
Then there's the ever dangerous question "What do you think?".
As with the busy streets in the centre of town or by the bars/clubs you are often at a standstill trying to negotiate traffic. This is usually when my pickpocket alert starts screaming. I'm not comfortable in a squeeze for this reason. You have to push hard with the crowd or be lost. As with any country there's always someone who wants to go against the flow.
By the end of the day Elvira and I were exhausted. Gamze was too. In fact so much so I heard later than he husband complained that she wasn't really there for their celebratory wedding anniversary!
Duygu however looked fresh as a daisy and gave the impression she could do it all over again.
Sunday as I intimated earlier was a complete contrast. I stayed in bed most of the day.
From memory I think it was St Patricks Day and there was an Internations get together later that evening. Something went awry and we didn't find them however we'd already got a group of 5 with Elvira, her 3 friends and I. Her friends were from Romania and Bulgaria.
We ended up cramming around a small table outside a bar in the hectic bar/club area which was nice. Prior to that we'd tried a club which turned out to be drum and base. I could handle it and our youngest member could too but the other 3 found it didn't suit them. Besides it's more fun to talk.
The youngy - Oana - wanted to continue clubbing with us strongly suggesting otherwise rather than be alone late at night.
Whist we were talking it out low-and-behold who turns up? It's Elvira's Turkish stalker! So called by me as he fancies her and seems to appear out of nowhere every no and then. Admittedly the core ex-pat clubbing area seems to be a very small one.
He provided a convenient excuse for us oldies to bail whilst he escorted Oana into the night.
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