Same Ol' Story

I love seeing my name on a piece of paper at the arrivals section of the airport.  You’ve had a long flight, you’ve collected your bag and you’ve managed to get through customs and passport control without a smile from anyone...... and then you emerge from the sliding doors to an awaiting crowd.  They’re all there to meet someone and I love it when that someone is me.  

We pushed our way through the sliding doors, because believe it or not, right in the doorway is not the best place to stop and search for your waiting family and friends especially when there is a building crowd of eager people behind you.  I may have knocked some kids over on my way through, but sometimes that’s the price you pay.  Anyway, we made it through and we walked along the plethora name signs searching for something familiar that perhaps had a vowel in it, and there it was “Michelle Brown”..... luckily it also had the name of our hotel on the bottom because down the row a little was another sign with the same name!  

Same old story!!!

The Levni Hotel was a pretty posh place, and a little more than we were expecting from our hotel inclusive package tour.  Our two compatriots, Madds and Robbo were already there, but it was late, so we were going to see them in the morning.  The man at the check in counter handed us our room key but said that we were going to be moving rooms the next day for the remainder of the stay.  When we enuired as to why he responded that we were being upgraded to a bigger room with a view of the Bosphurus.  “Much nicer” were his words.  After a massive day around the old town of Istanbul we returned to the hotel to move to our new room but when we got there, we had been downgraded to a much smaller room with a bathroom with no door and a view of a brick wall..... so down to reception we marched.  Another room was suggested, but we were asked to accompany a porter to see if it was to our liking.  All I will say is that we are lucky we didn’t take a cat with us!  The porter rang downstairs and a lot of talking Turkey went on.  Finally the porter said that they would give us our old room again.  We were obviously not meant to be in such a good room to start with, but you can’t put someone in your good room (Delta), then fib about upgrading and then try and put them in a substandard box...... that’s not how we roll!

Disclaimer: No children were hurt in the making of this blog post.