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Attend a Fenerbahce match in Istanbul (Turkey)
To buy tickets for a Galatasaray match, you must have a Passolig card. I wrote a detailed article on the subject here: how to get a Passolig card. After attending a match of Galatasaray and one of Besiktas, I end my tour of the 3 mythical clubs of Istanbul with a match of Fenerbahce A special feature of this evening: it is a mini-derby. Fenerbahce indeed faces another Istanbul club: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor (Istanbul BB) This match does not generate the same passion as the big derby between the 3 big ones: Galatasaray, Besiktas and Fenerbahce but the atmosphere promises to be warmer than the first two games I attended.…
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[story time] How did I get scammed in the souk of Tunis (Tunisia)?
It was March 2015, a little more than a year before our departure on our round-the-world trip, and I was still far from being the experienced traveler I have become since then. For the first time I was setting foot in the Maghreb and I was going to suffer (like so many tourists) a small scam, more vexing than truly detrimental. Souvenirs… It didn’t happen to me very often, but it was in the course of my work that I traveled. I was invited to speak at a conference in Tunis in my field of activity. I was very excited: first time I was going to set foot in Africa,…
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Discovery of the Turkish Baths (hammam) in Istanbul (Turkey)
What I particularly appreciate about traveling is trying to live authentic, typically local experiences. Traveling by public transportation, eating in dive bars where no tourist has ever set foot, getting a shave at the barbershop… or going to the public baths. I really liked the thermal baths in Budapest, appreciated the peculiarity of the sauna in Minsk, loved the onsens and sentos in Japan, a little less the Jjimjilbang in South Korea. In Turkey, it is impossible not to test the traditional hammams (or Turkish baths)! The tradition of the hammams is lost in Turkey. 100 years ago, there were 2500 Turkish baths in Istanbul. Since then the baths have…
