Sunday, June 24, 2012

Which Direction?

Driving in Istanbul is not for the faint hearted.....being a passenger in Istanbul is not for the faint hearted.  Mummy is finding sitting in what should be the driver's seat but is in fact the passenger seat, while Daddy darts in and out the horrendous traffic, while idiots do the same, rather nerve-wracking.  Our new car is great and Mummy and Daddy are a good team (most of the time) when it comes to getting us anywhere.  Mummy plans the journey and navigates, while Daddy listens, does as he's told and drives.
  
When we first arrived my Parents were relying of Daddy's blackberry to direct us anywhere.  For my Girl Guide, Duke of Edinburgh Award recipient Mummy, this wasn't working.  "I'm a kinesthetic learner!" I heard her bark at my Daddy as we took yet another wrong turn, "I can't read directions, I need to follow a map!"  We very quickly realised that unlike in the UK, if you miss your exit or turning, you can't just go to the next, turn around and come back.  We discovered this as we missed our turning to Carrefour and after taking the next exit realised we were on our way to Ankara.  Not panicking, my parents stopped and tried to work out the routes using the Blackberry.  After our epic failure trying twice to get to Carrefour and twice getting lost and taking an hour and a half to get somewhere, which is only 5km from home, Mum set out to buy a map!  Last Saturday, with map on lap, we set off.  It was all going good.  Mum and Dad were discussing the route and were now able to recall landmarks (this was our 3rd attempt remember).  We were nearly there and merged onto the "big road", which if you are not careful takes you to the Bridge and onto the European side.....or as we'd seen last week, on to Ankara.  Suddenly, from the front, Findlay and I heard the familiar discussion get up. "I think we should have veered right," "No no, I think we are fine," "No look there is Carrefour there, we should have been in that lane," "Oh I think you're right, damn, we've done it again."  We zipped past Carrefour and our chance to exit was gone.  Destination European side.  But no, this time Mummy and Daddy knew what to do.  "Its ok," Mummy said, "We'll head to Ikea and start again from there,"  Which is what we did.  Ikea was another 10 minutes away.  So near but so far.  It didn't take long and eventually we were in Carrefour carpark with our parents muttering "Next time, next time we'll have it in the bag!"

Next time was today.  Today we were going to Palladium.  A new shopping mall just on the other side of Carrefour.  I heard my parent's discuss the route, and how they couldn't go wrong this time, they knew the had to "bear right" when going on to the "big road."  Today we did it, we sailed passed the Carrefour entrance waving as we went, and headed straight on to Palladium.  On our way home I didn't even see the map come out, my parents follow the signs for Sahilyolu (Beach Road) and we get home with no problems.  As Mummy said, we are sorted now.  We can get to the supermarket, shopping mall and home again.  A little victory for us, which makes settling in here that little bit easier.

1 comment:

  1. Poor Annabelle, I'm sure mummy and daddy will get so much better at this.

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