Adventures in Visastan 2

There was no word from Hamid when İ woke up after my first night in İstanbul. So İ decided to just show up at the İstanbul branch listed on Hamids website. İ took a train to Laleli, outside the famed Covered Bazaar. And looked for the following adress...

Ordu Caddesi. No. 291 Kat. 3/59 Laleli İş Merkezi.
İ found No. 291 and walked into the travel office on the third floor but the guy didnt know what İ was talking about. He pointed me to the İş Merkezi (not No. 291) and İ went there, finding 3/59, labled Pars Tourism. The receptionist was a woman in a black chador so İ figured İ had probably found the place. İ asked her if she spoke English and she didnt really so İ asked her if she spoke Turkish and she replied with bemused irritation that she WAS Turkish. Well dont get annoyed with me if İ think a chadored woman in an İranian tour office is İranian!

Two men (one looked alot like Ahmadinejad) came out and İ explained my situation with the visa and Hamid, straining my Turkish to places it had never been before. They had never heard of Hamid and this was not his office. They told me that for a week İran had been on vacation celebrating Fatima, the İmam, etc. So that might be why Hamid went dark. For a few minutes İ nursed an intense resentment of Shiism (its passed since then). Other than that the guys were not very helpful, sympathetic or friendly, as Turks typically are. As İ was leaving they asked me why an American wanted to go to İran, saying coldly that they will cut of my head.

İ made my way to the old neighborhood of Sirkeci to the İranian consulate, where İ talked to a kind old İranian man (İ think the consul himself) in a mixture of Turkish and English. İ was hoping that somehow the visa confirmation number had arrived but no such luck. So İ talked to the consul a bit and he said that he recognized Hamid's name. The probability that Hamid was a complete scam artist decreased from 60% to 20% in my mind. The consul kept me for a while hoisting literature about Esfahan and Shiraz on me and wishing me the best. The whole experience made me less aprehensive about the İstanbul end of the İranian visa. İf only İran would end its inconvenient holiday.

Lastly I went the the bustling airline district near Taksim and found İran Air. İ talked to a middle aged İranian named Vakit who had worked with Greyhound for nine years in California and had lots of relatives in the state. He told me that the original tickets İ had were messed up because they were paper and this was forbidden starting in 2008. Apparently my travel agent had screwed this up. He changed my reservation from the 6th and 22nd to the 11th and 26th, meaning my itinerary is still viable and İll have till Wednesday to get the visa. Hamid, the balls in your court. Luckily Vakit had heard of Hamid to. İ now think there is just a 10% chance that Hamid is fake.

So the plan is to prevail on Hamid to finish the confirmation on Monday, for me to pick up the visa at the consulate on Tuesday and to fly over to Tehran on Wednesday.

Because İ have so much time to kill and nothing to do in İstanbul İve decided to take a weekend trip to Thesalloniki in Northern Greece.