I'm British now, apparently.
Yesterday I went into the British Consulate here in Istanbul and picked up my brand spanking new British passport.
Actually, I always was British. I was born of British parents (who later became Australian) and I was born in a British colony. When I was 21 and married to an Australian, I chose to become Australian ... but underneath I was still a "Pommie" of course.
Now I'm one of those people with Dual Nationality.
The tricky part is going to be turning Peter into a Brit, because he really is an Aussie.
So ... it was our day off and we had just picked up my passport from the hallowed (and very secure) grounds of the British Consulate in Istanbul. The task of assessing visa applications has been outsourced to a Turkish travel agent over at Üsküdar on the Asian side of Istanbul.
Well, how hard can that be?
The Consulate is in Taksim, the steep hilly centre of Istanbul - part-way down the hill. The last time we went there we just wandered on down the hill, discovered the Galata Tower on the way, and eventually found ourselves at the Galata Bridge across the Golden Horn. Intending to repeat the experience, we set off through the narrow, winding, traffic-snarled streets ... we figured that as long as we just kept going down we would eventually end up on the bridge again.
We were quite hot and tired by the time we stepped out across the bridge ... and stared out over the water of the Golden Horn at the Galata Bridge, the one where we wanted to be. We had got ourselves totally lost and ended up on the wrong bridge. Down there, near the Galata Bridge, we could see ferries lined up - one of them would be going across to Üsküdar, so we just had a bit more hiking to do.
Really hot and tired, but now very relieved to be no longer lost, we stepped onto a cool, airy ferry. A waiter came and offered us a drink - the freshly-squeezed orange juice barely touched the sides and we were soon relaxing our way across the Bosphorus, enjoying some of the most beautiful sights of Istanbul.
Stepping off the ferry in Asia, we showed the waiter the address we had on a piece of paper. He pointed off to the right, and assured us a taxi would get us there for 5 lira. We climbed into a waiting taxi, and showed our paper to the driver ... who promptly took off to the left. The ride in the taxi was considerably longer than one would expect for 5 lira. We went to all sorts of interesting places, along a nauseating high-speed tight switch-back road, up and down some hills ... Well, we were quite relieved when he "only" charged us 11 lira for our little tour, and dropped us in a very out-of-the-way place that looked like a housing development.
After the customary security check, we joined a queue where they looked at our IDs and photographed us then pointed to the reception desk. The nice lady gave me a large, heavy plastic tile (at least six inches square) with the number 77. We sat among the waiting crowd for a moment, spoke briefly to a fellow-Aussie lady, and decided this wasn't good enough - we must surely need to fill in a form or something.
To the consternation of all the non-English-speaking staff (considering this is an outpost of the British Consulate) we reappeared at the reception desk. Runners were sent off and people called for and a mere 10-15 minutes later they found someone who could maybe answer our questions. Finally someone handed us a 10-page form and a black pen, and pointed to a desk where we could work.
During our wait by the reception desk we did notice a schedule of fees. My passport had 'only' cost us 300 lira, but apparently this visa was going to cost us 1400 lira! We surreptitiously reefed through our wallets, and although we had left home feeling "loaded" we came up a hundred lira short.
Nevertheless we ploughed on through the form. Endless stupid repetitive questions - designed to check up on 'visa marriages' but meaningless for an old married couple like us. We were taking so long that the queue went way past our "77" tile, they were well into the 80s, and the whole centre was waiting to close soon - they close at 2pm - so they finally found a staff member to sit down with us and work through the form.
At a quarter to two it was all done! Nothing left to do except pay. Knowing we were 'a little' short we asked if they could accept debit card, or was there an ATM nearby. No, and no.
Back out on the deserted hot streets with our sheaf of papers to return with next week, we had to work out how to get back down to the ferry. Not a taxi in sight, nothing but houses in three directions, and then a fenced, empty parking lot, and over there past those houses what could be a bus station. We squeezed through a gap in the fence into the parking lot, and from there gained access to the bus station. The buses here were all empty, but down the far end we could see a crowd of people.
"Feribot?" we asked, and were directed to the already-full but still loading dilapidated articulated bus. We waved our akbils, but apparently it was a free bus ... no wonder it was so full.
Where was the bus when we went in the taxi?? It only took a few minutes to get down the hill to the ferry - and no switch-back or scenic tour - arriving from the direction the ferry-man had originally indicated.
So, now we are back into the weekend - wall-to-wall classes for the next four days for both of us.
And then ... more fun. They have promised us that next time it should only take about ten minutes for us to pay the money ... and then return again a week later to pick up Peter's passport with the visa in it.
England here we come! You'd better be ready for us.
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