In the lasts years I learnt that life can tell you when you are doing something wrong and it’s up to you to listen and find out the meanings…
I arrived in Istanbul by bus, I needed to change some money, I wanted to buy a local SIM card… and I was hungry!
I found some people at the bus terminal that told me how to reach a shopping center; it wasn’t so easy because no many people spoke English.
I turned on my audio recorder and I got something interesting.
I didn’t find a SIM card but I canged money, I had my breakfast and I also found a gentleman that brought me to a bus, in a way to reach my hostel.
When I arrived close to my point the driver made me get off and I started to walk following the gps point that I had on my phone.
I met a man that proposed to help me gut after a few minutes he tried to take my wallet from the trousers.
I probably had the poker on my leg opened and it has been a big temptation.
I rejected his hand, I continued to walk with him, as nothing was happened, maybe I didn’t really realized about what was going on.
I was also holding my phone with my left hand to listen to the gps application and after some minutes after he stole my phone very quickly.
I cannot remember exactly what happened, maybe I was shocked, anyway I holding his arm and I screamed to give me back the phone.
Probably the street was not totally empty and after few seconds he gave me it back.
So I tried to walk away from him, he asked me money and my answer has been not polite!
I was very confused when I walked alone, my legs trembled and I was really disappointed about what happened.
It was not easy to trust the people I met after and it was also so difficult to find my hostel.
I realized that maybe I was doing too much naively.
I tried to keep calm, I walked around for a long time and finally a nice sweet voice came to me; it was like an angel and I immediately felt I could trust her.
Maltan is a young girl, she couldn’t speak a lot of English but she anyway made me find another hostel.
She was smiling all the time and before to leave me asked me if the place we found was ok… So kind!
From that moment everything became easy and friendly and during the day I met so many people interested about my travel.
One of them was Roman, an Austrian guy that has been extremely helpful from the beginning.
He searched some informations about the embassies I needed and the day after he accompanied me to the Indian one and the Iranian one.
I changed my mind about the first one, the guard was very rude!
So we went to the Iranian embassy; initially it seemed it was very difficult to obtain the visa, gut when I spoke to the man through the glass and I explained him about my travel everything became easier, he called teheran and he did his best to gave me the document.
After some hours was everything done!
He arranged an appointment in two days to collect my passport and he called me ” my friend “.
Then we went to visit some beauty of the city and I took some pictures.
Enjoy Istambul!
Caro Ale, sei un portatore di pace e il tuo Angelo custode ti tiene ben stretto…