Best laid plans ....

Snow, snow go away, and bring me summer whilst you're at it!

We're getting there people, slowly but surely we're heading in the right direction; namely towards June, when the sun shines and I don't have to wear six layers from the moment I leave my electrically warmed bed, to falling back into it at night.

I don't suppose it helps when the shops are now full of summer clothes, tempting me into buying cropped t-shirts, denim shorts and bikinis. Whilst these are going to look fab in summer, in February, when you're up to your ankles in the white stuff and it's -9 at night, really you're going to get some funny looks. So layers it is.

And to answer the question on your lips - yes, I did buy them. I'm going to look great in summer, I might look like a tramp right now, but bring on the sun and I'll blossom like a butterfly, you just watch.

I suppose the one plus about it being winter is that I can't just jump on a plane to Turkey. In the summer, well last summer anyway, I felt unsettled and like I wanted to book a flight every other day. I can't do that at the moment, so I feel strangely centred and settled. It won't last, just wait until May, my addiction to Travel Republic will be at stratospheric levels yet again. If that site made money on traffic alone, they'd be a hell of a lot richer and I'd be asking for royalties.

I'm feeling a tad bit more positive this week, you'll be pleased to know. I've made a few decisions, I have a plan, I can see a road leading to where I want to be. I'm very much expecting a few bumps in this road, it wouldn't be life without them, but at least it's heading in the right direction, when before I had a vague idea but I was taking the most unscenic detour known to man.

They say positivity breeds opportunities, at least I think they do, but if they don't then they ought to because I think it might be working.

For a start, you'll all be very pleased to hear this I'm sure, I have given up on the boy. An epiphany called Istanbul came my way and as much as I wish things were different, they just aren't, and are never going to be. So this little chicken is moving on, albeit limping and slightly wounded from the whole affair, but hey, at least I tried, right? I have no regrets and I can ask no more than that. Everyone has their heart broken at some stage, mine just came a little later than most.

Summer however is going to be interesting, but that's a story for a future blog, no doubt.

So a few opportunities have started coming my way this week, one in particular made me squeak veeeery loudly when it landed in my inbox on Friday. Fingers crossed, but that's all I'll say because I don't want to jinx it!

One thing I have learnt this week, even though I sort of already knew this, is that parents and technology do not go together at all well. My parents have my old laptop, the key word in that is 'old'. Something bizarre has happened to it where it won't start up and it's suddenly like the technological world has decided to conspire to do it on purpose. I fixed it once, it's broken again. It really isn't the end of the world, someone else will fix it better, someone who actually knows what they're doing and isn't just pressing random buttons and hoping for the best. But bloody hell, anyone would think someone's chopped their left arm off, and they don't even use it that much. One particular suggestion was that a virus has caused it (which it hasn't, I've scanned it) and it's as though it's suddenly going to jump out of the computer and infect every human being within a 10 mile radius. Honestly.

So this is how I am about to spend my Sunday afternoon. Fixing a computer to avert a household drama. I don't really have much confidence in this happening, the last time I managed to fix it, well I couldn't really tell you what I did to it, it just worked after pressing a few buttons. I don't remember which buttons granted, but I'll give it another go. I had planned to spend the day lazing around, doing some writing and making some headway with my book. So far I have written one paragraph, before the great computer drama occured.

Best laid plans .....

Running before I can walk

I think I might have massively overestimated my stage in the heartbreak recovery process. Over the last couple of days, I have definitely tried to run before I can walk. This is not good news, I think I need to go back to Istanbul to find myself again. Now wouldn't that be a damn shame?!

I think the 'oh I'm fine, I'm cured' stance adopted during and immediately after my fab little trip east, might have been fuelled by that wonderful emotion we call anger. The only problem is that anger does not last forever, and like most things it fades into something less dramatic. In my case that's going from happy, positive Nicky, back to mooching, feeling bleugh Nicky. It was nice for those few days though, I guess that's something. Just need to find a way to make the high last a little longer next time.

So trying to be proactive, refusing to mooch if I could help it, I decided to try something drastic. Now, don't laugh, this is not something I would normally admit to doing, but my god it has made me chuckle, so really it would be rude not to share.

Okay here goes - I attempted onling dating.

Never again.

In the space of half an hour, I was propositioned, insulted, freaked out and reduced to tears due to laughing far too much. One guy wanted to show me his art work, I'm not sure if he really meant his art work or something else.

Now I'm sure for some people this method of meeting people works, in fact I know a couple who met over the internet and are now happily married. I can only assume they were both a hell of a lot more patient than me, and happy to weed their way through countless weirdos before finding someone with a basic level of sanity. I have no patience, so it looks like back to the drawing board for me.

The worrying thing about this is that during my time of searching for potentially half decent guys, I found myself comparing them all to the boy. This is not good news either. I read an age, my immediate thought was 'oh he was 27 last week too', I saw a photo of someone vaguely ethnic looking, my interest immediately piqued, only to crash back down when I realised he looked nothing like him, so therefore was not attractive in my eyes.

Arrgh! I'm trying, honest to god I am. I know that I've done all I can and need to walk away, so I'm trying to be proactive, trying to move on, albeit half-heartedly, or even quarter-heartedly, if there is such a thing. Why is it not working?!

Yes, I know, I must be patient. Like I said before, I have no patience.

This may also be because the basic reality of it all is, I don't really want to let it go. But let it go I must. So I'm told.

I really am starting to believe that maybe I'm destined to be alone. I even sat and thought about this in some depth the other day, tried to convince myself that it really wouldn't be so bad, tried to see the positives in it. There's a few I came up with - no male moods, no dealings with man flu, no having to pick up wet towels off the bathroom floor, nobody leaving the toilet set up, no odd, dirty socks on the bedroom floor. That's it. A pathetic bunch of positives to come up with really.

Of course, I don't need a man to make me happy, I'm thinking maybe that seeing as everybody I even look at these days seems to come up short and be compared to someone who really doesn't treat me properly anyway, and has questionable eyebrows, then maybe I really am better off on my tod for a while. If you read Cosmo, which I do quite frequently, then all the twaddle they spout about being happy with yourself, and needing time to heal after a relationship break up, really could be quite true. I think I might try and find out.

So needless to say, I won't be seeing anybody's art work, and I certainly won't be going to other dude's house to bake bread (yes, this was a serious request), in fact this whole experience of delving into the world of internet weirdos has put me off for life. I apologise if I'm insulting anyone that uses these sites, I'll quite happily admit that not everyone is like this, it's just that I seem to attract weirdos.

They say opposites attract, you see.

An Eastern Adventure

I am knackered. I have bags under my eyes that I’m surprised Easy Jet didn’t try and charge me for. I also have a knackered shoulder thanks to National Express thinking that their seats are in any way suitable for long-distance travel.

However, this was all in a good cause.

Istanbul baby!

It was absolutely fantastic – tiring, but sooooo worth it.

I know what you’re thinking, and you can stop right there! No, it had nothing to do with a man. I’ll  reiterate that because it seems nobody believes me, and in most people’s eyes, the only reason a girl would go to Istanbul in winter is to see a guy. Wrong! This girl goes to Istanbul in winter for fun girly weekend breaks, chicken kebabs, Efes and baklava. No men involved. However there was rather a lot of Efes involved, but that’s never a bad thing.

It was an overall really positive trip in a lot of ways, the main one being that I may have come to my senses in regards to the boy. Shock horror! Yes, I know, long overdue. I’m done. I think. I really don’t want to be done, but I’m done. Bottom line is, yeah I still have feelings, quite strong ones, but I deserve to be treated better. Done.

Are you convinced yet? Have I said the word ‘done’ enough times?

But really, I’m done. Honest I am.

So anyway, back to our little adventure.

Getting ready in Nottingham

For the many things I saw and learnt in those four days, one of the first was that student night in the middle of Nottingham is, erm, yeah, interesting. I come from a large town, so I thought I’d seen most things with regards to nights out, but bouncers in McDonalds? That’s a new one on me. I don’t fancy their job either, with some of the sights that attempted to cross the door for a Big Mac. Scary. In fact, they made Ronald McDonald look friendly.

In case you were wondering what the hell we were doing in a city in the Midlands, when I was meant to be heading east – meeting my mate en route. See, now you understand.

So then came the first trauma of a very long night and day - my first ever Easy Jet flight. Yeah, I was an Easy Jet virgin – and after attempting to get seated, I understood why. Oh my god, talk about cattle market. It’s a good job we’d loaded up on Krispy Kremes and Starbucks otherwise I might just have lost my rag with the pushing, shoving and general rudeness. And that was just the stewardesses. We eventually got seated and on our way; I think my stress levels dropped somewhere over Germany, and that was only thanks to my second donut of the day. Breakfast of champions.

The moment we landed in Turkey I felt like I’d come home. My friend agreed.

Don’t roll your eyes. It just felt right, and considering I’d never been to Istanbul before, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty weird. I can’t explain it, I just connect with the place for some reason, everything about it. Okay not everything, I did end up having a rather heated debate over the whole Turkish/Kurdish thing at one point, but it’s fine, we agreed to disagree. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain, or understand, why a country that five years ago, I had no interest at all in visiting, has managed to get me hook, line and sinker, completely in love with it. But I ain’t complaining.

So Istanbul.

Crossing from Asia to Europe

Istanbul is big. Huge in fact. That’s one big assed city. It was also one very cold, big assed city. But a wonderful, cold, big assed city all the same. We didn’t get lost either, well apart from in the Grand Bazaar but I’m assured that even the locals get lost in there, so you can’t really blame us for that.

And then it snowed.

Now I’ve learnt that in England, we are absolutely crap at snow. I’ve suspected this for a while, my ex-flatmate was Norwegian, well she is Norwegian still, but whenever it snowed she used to roll her eyes and mutter about how we used to stop everything and panic, when in Norway everything just carried on. She’s right, I’ve seen it with my own eyes now. Nobody batted an eyelid when massive white flakes started falling from the murky sky and people started sliding down the street, rather than walking. We were shrieking and muttering about cold, whilst trying not to fall over. Spot the Brit. But the snow added a certain something to it, I have to admit. Frostbite maybe, but it was pretty.

Beautiful Blue Mosque at night

We did the normal touristy things – Blue Mosque (beautiful and so serene, although the fashion look we were forced to adopt, headscarf, no shoes and dodgy blue wrap thing, because apparently leggings aren’t considered the thing to wear (even when covered by a dress), was not something Gok Wan would have approved of), Hagia Sofia (really took my breath away), Grand Bazaar (lost! Was just like Marmaris bazaar on acid basically), and Taksim square (busy!). We also did the normal touristy thing of getting conned.

The new fashion trend .. it'll catch on!

You’d think we’d know better, it’s far from the first time we’ve been to this country, but no, we fell for several scams, which thankfully we can laugh at now.

The first one was due to us being completely and utterly naive, there really is no other excuse for it, we should have known better. There we were, stood taking photos of Blue Mosque, trying not to turn blue ourselves due to the cold, when this tall, dark, handsome stranger comes over and starts asking us where we’re from, telling us that he talks to tourists to practice his English. Yeah, I know, looking back it’s obvious, his English was better than mine. Then he asks if we want to go to his shop for a drink because Turkish hospitality (we heard this phrase far too much from men over the course of the weekend) says that if you have a drink with someone, that means 40 years of friendship. I know, I know – gullible.

Yes, we went. Yes, we’re naive. Turns out his shop was a carpet shop.

Yeah, I’ll pause for you to laugh.

In our defence, it was a carpet shop with central heating, so all was not lost.

We got our cup of cay, but we also got the hard sell from his boss, after the dude who had collared us in the street, the one who wanted to be our friend for 40 years, had conveniently disappeared. Hmmm, ploy to get girls into the shop? Methinks so. Needless to say, we didn’t buy a carpet, I can’t say I have 500 quid going spare, and if I did, I wouldn’t be spending it on a carpet. We did however play him at his own game and pretend we were interested in purchasing one, making him get loads and loads of carpets out, us sitting there going ‘no, I don’t like that one’, ‘yeah that’s nice’, ‘oh have you got that in pink?’ Served him right.

We managed to escape eventually, after he made me take loads of photos of the carpets on my phone because we’d lied and said we’d call someone back home with a photo of one, as they may be interested, then return later.

Needless to say we didn’t.

Needless to say those photos are no longer on my phone either.

So then we headed out to Hagia Sofia, and found the Istanbul version of the famous Marmaris chat up line ‘let’s go for a walk on the beach’. Anyone who’s been to Marmaris will know that a ‘walk on the beach’, does not involve walking. Seems the Istanbul version of this is to hang around well known tourist spots, and randomly compliment English girls, telling them that it’s Turkish hospitality (that again) and do we want to meet him later in Taksim for a glass of wine. Er, no. What’s your name again?!

Shameless, I tell you.

Pleased with our day of sightseeing in the snow, we decided to head over to Taksim to meet a friend for some well-deserved Efes. Then came scam number 2, or 3 if you want to look at the wine thing another way - taxi on a meter. Normally I wouldn’t get in a taxi without agreeing a price first, but it was absolutely Baltic, snowing and there were no taxis to be seen apart from this particular one, which is odd considering on our last night, there were more taxis than ants on the pavement in summer. So in we get, being far too trusting again – bad move. A taxi that should have cost us 15 lira, ended up costing us nearer 30, thanks to him driving around in a rather large circle, hoping we wouldn’t notice. In the end we got our friend to speak to him on the phone and he practically threw us out earlier than he should, luckily we managed to find our way. Git.

The final scam (yes, we had one for every day we were there) was a little old man, who we thought we were helping out. Wrong again. Turns out the sweet, little old man, was a conman instead.

What would you do if an old, tottering man walked past you and dropped his shoe brush? You’d shout him back and pick it up for him, right? Well being well mannered girls, that’s what we did. And when the old man shouted after us and offered to shine our shoes for helping him, being typically British we bumbled a bit, saying ‘oh no need’ before he took the initiative and practically began shining our boots anyway. Nice old man he was, telling us about his children, who then became his starving children, who we then bought dinner for when he charged us 20 lira each. Shiny shoes though.

You live and learn.

Something I will never learn, it seems, is that me and alcohol do not go together well. Well, we go together well at the time, not so well a couple of hours later when I’m sat on the bathroom floor, groaning that I’m never drinking again. It was worth it though, we had a great night, and for the first time in ages I forgot all the crap (i.e. the crap with the boy) and just had a good time. I liked that feeling. I’m keeping hold of that feeling.

There are definitely some sights in Taksim of an evening though, at one stage I wasn’t sure if I was looking at a man or a woman, whatever it was, it was very convincing either way. It also seems that rocking up at a restaurant serving dessert at 3am is perfectly normal, as is eating Baklava and kunefe washed down with Efes at 3am. I have to say, it’s my kinda city.

Baklava

Kunefe

I’ve yet to decide which I prefer – baklava or kunefe, but it’s a close call. It’s also what I’m blaming my 3lb weight gain on. Nothing to do with the Efes at all.

The next morning though, after groaning about never drinking again, I woke up with the hangover of all hangovers. We were not up for sightseeing, I didn’t really feel like I was up for keeping anything solid down either, but you’ll be pleased to know I managed it. So instead of going to Topkapi Palace like we’d intended, we meandered around, with the sole intention of finding Starbucks, and actually ending up down near the fish market and walking along the sea front. It was nice, and it blew away some of the hangover. It was on this walk we came across the shoe shine man. I blame the hangover, and the lack of Starbucks. The ironic thing about this is that when you’re not looking for Starbucks in Istanbul, you’ll find three; when you want one, there’s none to be found.

For some reason the hangover made us slightly more adventurous and we bravely tried the underground on our own. We didn’t get lost. How good is that? We were ridiculously proud of ourselves and took a few photos to prove it. Yeah, we’re sad, but it was fun. We also did the obligatory bit of shopping and found the most bargainous of bargains, a shop selling loads of costume jewellery for 3 lira each. We managed to bag ourselves 100 lira’s worth of jewellery for 15 lira. Now if that’s not a find, I don’t know what is. And it is in this shop that I decided I was definitely getting my nose pierced. I mean, you get a pack of 5 gorgeous nose studs for 3 lira, of course it’s a sign you must get a hole punched through your nose.

Look closely - needle!

Well, I thought it would be punched through, turns out it was stabbed through with a very large needle and left in for a while, whilst my mate took photos of me looking like something out of a tribe. Hideous. The guy doing the deed kept stopping to laugh at me, which didn’t fill me with much confidence – surely it’s perfectly normal for your lip to quiver when someone’s coming at you with a 10cm needle, with the intention of sticking it through your nose?! He’s lucky I didn’t punch him, it’s a bit of a reflex action in self-defence where needles are concerned. You wouldn’t think I’d got three tattoos.

But I was brave anyway, and I now have a cute pink, sparkly stud. What isn’t cute is the rather large hook on the end of it that I have to keep in for six weeks whilst it heals. Driving me mad already, but I’m assured it’ll be worth it when I can put a normal backed stud in. And I have five to choose from, remember.

Decisions, decisions.

There was far too much to see in four days, and the sheer size of the place made it practically impossible to see it all anyway, but what we did see was totally worth it. I remembered what I love about Turkey without the boy being involved, because I admit I was starting to think that he was the reason for it all. Thankfully I’ve remembered he isn’t, and I remembered how to party with my friends and have a great time in their company, without constantly feeling guilty, looking over my shoulder or feeling sad about who wasn’t there. 

I think maybe I found myself again in Istanbul. Crazy, I know, but this is the first time I’ve come home from Turkey in well over 12 months without feeling like my heart’s been ripped out all over again. I like coming home and not feeling like that, as much as I still didn’t want to leave, and as much as summer planning is well underway.

The other thing this trip has left me with is an addiction to Starbucks that I don’t think I’ll ever be cured from. We don’t have a Starbucks in our town; I have the shakes to prove it. Costa just ain’t the same.

So now I look like staying put for a few months, until summer decides to grace us with its presence and I can jet off again.

Boo.

Summer – hadi hadi! Can't wait.