August 28, 2011

need to buy some groceries today

it was Nilla's farewell party yesterday. or judging by the amount of finns there, maybe an early welcome party. it was nice, definitely. im really excited for Nilla, shes young and taking a big step in changing her life.

when us girls left the bar (Senni, Melisa, Anna), we walked towards the port and on the way i saw the first DEAD animal in turkey. considering how many animals there are here, its surprising, ive always wondered where they go to die, or who cleans up the roadkills. she was a resident of our neighborhood, so i recognized her. the body looked ok but the way she laid in the middle of the road proved that she was gone. i just pulled her to the curb. the body was still warm. after saying hi to everyone and coming home i looked from the window and got paranoid if the cat was actually dead or not. i ran back barefoot and saw her eyes, they were dead, and she was less warm. so i carried her to the trash, because really, that woud be the fastest way for her body to be taken away. i didnt see a wound but blood dripped on my foot when i carried her.


random people hangin out and drinking on the street.















i was trying to buy tickets to a train in Bulgaria. but the Turkish Railways website is one of the worst i've ever seen. typically only half of the site is up. the english is horrible and the information random. it gives me an error that for online ticket reservation i need IE 5 or above. but on IE (i tried 6, 7, 8 and 9) the whole thing doesnt even open, says "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage". so i continue trying with firefox. its tough, the forms give errors after which you need to start all over again. i know ive managed this once over a year ago so i tried the "forgotten password" button, however it wasnt functional atm and i got an error ("try again later"- in turkish).

it took me a while to understand that the telephone number field required a turkish landline number, cos i kept getting error no matter what else i tried. after giving a bogus landline number, i got an error about not giving my birthdate. it was not marked as compulsory... btw, it says that u agree to receiving email and phone marketing from TCDD by creating this account, there is no way to opt out. but thats the least of my probems, especially since i dount they can send txt messages to landline numbers.

after registeration and a few other confusing screens i conclude that online reservation is not available for trains going abroad.
i was slowed down by messages like this:
You login to the system by using your user anme and password

create an account pls. and try to locate the "agree" button.













after i (think? i registered







online ticket reservation FAIL

4 comments:

roland deschain of gilead said...

i made the mistake of going to bulgaria by train on my first ever trip. i dont advice it to anyone. once u enter bulgaria the train seems to stop randomly for long periods of time. in the end it took me around 20 hours to make it to sofia from istanbul.
meanwhile, if u take a bus from kadıkoy (use Metro for example)u can be in sofia in 8 hours.

also u do not need to reserve a ticket for the train. it is just seats and there will always be empty seats. if u really want to use the train just go to train station on eminonu and buy yr ticket before departure.

suzi9mm said...

i dont mind the few extra hours if i can sleep in clean sheets and walk around and get to know a lot of people. so i prefer train over bus. my trains were late a couple hours too but it didnt make much difference for my holiday schedule.

and yes, the tickets were bought from the train station naturally.

roland deschain of gilead said...

i guess the train i travelled with had no bed compartments. there were seats for 6 people only. i shared mine with a polish couple and a croatian guy and i showed them how to prepare the nargile they bought from sultanahmet and we had a wild night on the train.
i remember when we went to plovdiv the train stopped and they announced that passengers that will go to european trainway has to go to another coach. passengers to sofia had to wait inside for 4 hours until "plovdiv-sofia" train to leave and they added our coach behind that train :)

suzi9mm said...

so i think things have changed since then. i did buy the sleeping compartment ticket separately, so if i just bought a seat i guess it would have been the same thing as for u. but also i didn't need to switch trains, that would have been a hassle.