![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/2BEcSYI
walburgablack
replied to your post
“Both Z and I are getting super fucking jittery about our upcoming trip…”
they should have exchange counters, tho? and any remotely touristy spot will accept dollars
Yes, this is what the conventional wisdom on the Internet seems to be. And like… it’s not… weird to pay with dollars, is it? I feel like… I dunno, the arrogant American swans in dripping cash and expects to be catered to and shits everywhere. I dunno! I dunno. My general practice overseas is to quietly pretend not to be foreign, but it’s amazing how many places in the world being enormous and blonde makes that sort of hilariously impractical.
Best not to worry about it too much, I suppose. The correct thing to do will hopefully be apparent, and if not, well, if one is an American who swans in dripping cash, then the thing to do is to drip cash, and I suppose we’re moderately prepared for that. (I have put all this cash into several wallets that I’ve now salted through my luggage in hopefully easy-for-me-to-find, not-tempting-for-pickpockets locations. We shall see. I feel like one’s first aid kit is a good place to keep an envelope of money, right? Who knows.)
missbuster replied to your post “Both Z and I are getting super fucking jittery about our upcoming trip…”
Why are you going to all those cool places?
Largely, because they’re cool! there was a long story with my dude’s job being mad that he never took real vacations because he took them with me doing work for various family members (we seriously flew to Georgia and spent a week packing my sister’s house last year, that was absolutely my idea of a lovely May pastime), and they were like “you gotta go somewhere where you don’t know anybody”, which was hilarious because the next runner-up was Norway where I have family and would probably have helped one of them move or something [last time we were there we insisted on doing wedding setup work, lol, these things just happen! i wasn’t going to leave them there and go look at fjords or something when they still hadn’t figured out they had to press those tablecloths!! we got plenty of time to look at fjords. I have sort of… border collie tendencies, I can’t help it. In my defense the entire American delegation joined me in this, we all thought it was fun. For real though who DOESN’T love setting tables?? Also that close to the arctic circle in summer we really didn’t realize it was like 11pm by the time we finished.]
Anyway– the Nomad Games are this year, and Dude really wanted to go, and I have approximately 0 chill when it comes to yurts or horses so I wasn’t in any way going to object.
And Turkey is where the layover is. You can’t fly direct to basically anywhere in Central Asia, you gotta stop in either Moscow, Istanbul, or Dubai, and Istanbul was the most interesting and least terrifying possibility.
thesacredreznor replied to your post “Both Z and I are getting super fucking jittery about our upcoming trip…”
Traveling and using cards is so weird. When I was in Israel last summer I could use everything no problem. I was in the Netherlands this spring and a lot of places there only take debit cards? And it your card was older and didn’t have a chip you were out of luck too. Idk. How long are you in Turkey? A relative of mine used to live there but returned to the US recently because it’s gotten so bad.
We’ll only be in Turkey for an extended layover– 2 or 3 days. I mean, because Istanbul is cool, but also to try and blunt the shock of the huge time change. I’m sorry to hear about your relative– I know there’s been a great deal of civil unrest and economic upheaval, even if I haven’t been following the news closely. (I remember specifically that they’ve been disappearing academics and journalists, which, yikes.)
I just feel like it’s one of those places that if you’ve any chance to see it, you must! And it’s a shame there’s political unrest but like, tourists gotta tourist, I just figure you need to pay attention and be careful. I really hope nothing stupid happens while we’re there. (I very much mean the US doing something stupid, mind.) (Ugh let’s not contemplate. I just. I don’t know where to start contemplating. Yiiiiikes.)
I was in Europe a couple years ago, 2015 I think, for the cousins’ wedding in Norway, and we stopped over in Iceland. They were so funny, because chip cards had only just come out in the US and no Americans had any idea how to use them, and every point of sale kiosk had instructions next to it in English for the bewildered tourists.
walburgablack
replied to your post
“Both Z and I are getting super fucking jittery about our upcoming trip…”
they should have exchange counters, tho? and any remotely touristy spot will accept dollars
Yes, this is what the conventional wisdom on the Internet seems to be. And like… it’s not… weird to pay with dollars, is it? I feel like… I dunno, the arrogant American swans in dripping cash and expects to be catered to and shits everywhere. I dunno! I dunno. My general practice overseas is to quietly pretend not to be foreign, but it’s amazing how many places in the world being enormous and blonde makes that sort of hilariously impractical.
Best not to worry about it too much, I suppose. The correct thing to do will hopefully be apparent, and if not, well, if one is an American who swans in dripping cash, then the thing to do is to drip cash, and I suppose we’re moderately prepared for that. (I have put all this cash into several wallets that I’ve now salted through my luggage in hopefully easy-for-me-to-find, not-tempting-for-pickpockets locations. We shall see. I feel like one’s first aid kit is a good place to keep an envelope of money, right? Who knows.)
missbuster replied to your post “Both Z and I are getting super fucking jittery about our upcoming trip…”
Why are you going to all those cool places?
Largely, because they’re cool! there was a long story with my dude’s job being mad that he never took real vacations because he took them with me doing work for various family members (we seriously flew to Georgia and spent a week packing my sister’s house last year, that was absolutely my idea of a lovely May pastime), and they were like “you gotta go somewhere where you don’t know anybody”, which was hilarious because the next runner-up was Norway where I have family and would probably have helped one of them move or something [last time we were there we insisted on doing wedding setup work, lol, these things just happen! i wasn’t going to leave them there and go look at fjords or something when they still hadn’t figured out they had to press those tablecloths!! we got plenty of time to look at fjords. I have sort of… border collie tendencies, I can’t help it. In my defense the entire American delegation joined me in this, we all thought it was fun. For real though who DOESN’T love setting tables?? Also that close to the arctic circle in summer we really didn’t realize it was like 11pm by the time we finished.]
Anyway– the Nomad Games are this year, and Dude really wanted to go, and I have approximately 0 chill when it comes to yurts or horses so I wasn’t in any way going to object.
And Turkey is where the layover is. You can’t fly direct to basically anywhere in Central Asia, you gotta stop in either Moscow, Istanbul, or Dubai, and Istanbul was the most interesting and least terrifying possibility.
thesacredreznor replied to your post “Both Z and I are getting super fucking jittery about our upcoming trip…”
Traveling and using cards is so weird. When I was in Israel last summer I could use everything no problem. I was in the Netherlands this spring and a lot of places there only take debit cards? And it your card was older and didn’t have a chip you were out of luck too. Idk. How long are you in Turkey? A relative of mine used to live there but returned to the US recently because it’s gotten so bad.
We’ll only be in Turkey for an extended layover– 2 or 3 days. I mean, because Istanbul is cool, but also to try and blunt the shock of the huge time change. I’m sorry to hear about your relative– I know there’s been a great deal of civil unrest and economic upheaval, even if I haven’t been following the news closely. (I remember specifically that they’ve been disappearing academics and journalists, which, yikes.)
I just feel like it’s one of those places that if you’ve any chance to see it, you must! And it’s a shame there’s political unrest but like, tourists gotta tourist, I just figure you need to pay attention and be careful. I really hope nothing stupid happens while we’re there. (I very much mean the US doing something stupid, mind.) (Ugh let’s not contemplate. I just. I don’t know where to start contemplating. Yiiiiikes.)
I was in Europe a couple years ago, 2015 I think, for the cousins’ wedding in Norway, and we stopped over in Iceland. They were so funny, because chip cards had only just come out in the US and no Americans had any idea how to use them, and every point of sale kiosk had instructions next to it in English for the bewildered tourists.
