Daily Bytes

Trip to Portugal

Via If-Then-Else: American tourists’ description of their trip to Portugal.

Snow at Portugal

Portugal’s only snow resort at the Serra da Estrela has been renovated along with its website. It’s not much but being the closest resort to Porto I’ll have to check it someday.

Closed for Vacations

I’m going to spend a well deserved one week vacation at Port el Kantaoui in Tunisia. This blog will be closed until the 11th.

Serra da Estrela Ski Resort

Turistrela: It’s not much
but it’s the best this little country can offer for ski.
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Baqueira Photos (2)

href="http://www.andrerestivo.com/photos/baqueira2003.2/">Album:
2003 - Baqueira (2): The second batch of photos is available.

Baqueira Photos

href="http://www.andrerestivo.com/photos/baqueira2003/">Album: 2003
- Baqueira: As promissed the first batch of photos is now
online

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width="400" height="300" border="0" />

Baqueira

href="http://www.baqueira.es/">Baqueira: I’ll be out
snowboarding through the week.

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width="533" height="400" border="0" />

So this blog is officially closed untill I return, with photos

Istanbul

I’m back from my 5 day trip to Istanbul. These are some comments
about this undoubtfuly big and misterious city (photos will follow
shortly).

• Shopping - One of the most popular places in
  Istanbul is the Grand Bazaar. This unique place is a enormous set
  of streets, all completely covered by sumptuous ceilings, hosting
  around 4000 small shops. In these shops you can buy anything from
  carpets to gold pieces. Several peculiarities have to be said about
  this place:
  1. Shop owners are constantly trying to get your attention. They
     do it using several techniques: trying to guess your nationality,
     offering you some tea or the simpler ‘yes please’ and pointing to
     their shops.
  2. Prices are not shown anywhere. This forces you to engage in
     conversation with the salesman if you want to know an article’s
     price.
  3. After knowing the price he asks, you should always offer 1/3 of
     that value. He will probably tell something like ‘good price for
     you no good price for me’ (read with turkish accent) and offer
     another price. Normally you can buy the article for about half the
     initial price but you always get the feeling he made the best deal
     (although he will always tell you how good you are making
     deals).
  4. Almost all deals are made using Euros.
• Money - In 1974 you could buy 14 Turkish Liras
  with 1 dollar. 29 years later, with that same 1 dollar bill, you
  can buy almost 1.7 million Turkish Liras. Even last year the
  Turkish national currency lost half of its value. This increasing
  inflation is Turkey’s biggest obstacle to entering the European
  Union. This unusual low money value has some curious effects:
  1. You instantly become a millionaire.
  2. The difference between 1, 10 and 100 million TL bills is the
     number of zeros. This makes it extremely difficult for the common
     mortal to distinguish between the different notes and makes it easy
     for Turkish people to deceive the unsuspecting tourist (see
     Taxis)
  3. Deals are often done in Euros.
• Traffic - 80% of Turkish people (my estimate)
  drive the same model of car. Fiat has sold an old Fiat 132 factory
  to Turkey and it’s still working and making the same car model but
  under a different name. 80% of these cars (another estimate of
  mine) are taxis. I thought Italian were reckless drivers but after
  this 5 days I think of them as extremely cautious drivers. Turkish
  driving lesson:
  1. On a crossroad the car that honks first has priority.
  2. If you are one of the few people that drive a different car
     than a Fiat 132 then you never have priority
  3. You can only run over a peon without warning if he isn’t on a
     crosswalk. If he happens to be on a crosswalk you have to honk
     first.
  4. Never, but really never, use direction change lights.
  5. Disregard all lane separator lines. In fact what in the hell
     are lanes.
  6. Overcome other cars randomly through the left and through the
     right. You don’t want to follow any kind of predictable path.
  7. City train railways are excelent places to drive on and to
     park.

  This said only one more remark: I didn’t see a single car crash on
  this whole 5 days. Strange? Maybe they are the ones following the
  correct rules.

• Taxis - A cab is the less expensive way to
  move around the city. But if you remember what I said about the
  traffic, remember also that 80% of it is made by taxi drivers. One
  particucar time the taxi I was in drove several kilometers in a one
  way narron road just to avoid the traffic. The driver kept
  explaining that what he was doing wasn’t normal (no kidding) and
  had a 20 dollar bill and a cigar in his hand should a police stop
  him. Taxi drivers are also excelent at confusing the client when
  its time to pay. They take the money you give with the same hand
  they hold their own money and then magically your 10 million note
  becomes a 1 million note.
• Mosques - 98% of Turkey population are muslim.
  In Istanbul only there are about 2000 mosques. Some of them are
  magnific works of art and worth the trip on their own. The most
  amazing of them all is the Hagia Sofia built in the 6th century and
  still standing like it was built last year.
• Population - 12 million just in Istanbul. Nuff
  said.
• History - Istanbul was the capital of three
  ancient empires: the Byzantin, the Ottoman and the Roman. It wasn’t
  always known by its current name, first it was known as Byzance and
  later as Constantinople. Only when the Turkish took control of the
  city did it gain it’s current name of Istanbul.