Got That One Out of the Way
I took a taksi this morning because I slept long enough I couldn’t afford the Metro odyssey from Pera. I said, “Shell office in Şişli-Esentepe, on Salih Tozan.” The first driver made me swap cars and apparently said, “Shell in Şişli-Esentepe.” There was some “evet” (yes) going on, and we took off.
Yes, he took me to the Shell gas station in Esentepe.
I suppose a dapperly-dressed fellow taking a cab (implying no car ownership?) to a gas station at 7:40 in the morning makes sense? He also didn’t know where the major mall, next to my office, was located, so I think cabbies in Pera don’t know the more northern areas of the old city.
He was very nice, and the fare came to 14.30 TL or so. He tried to give me change for my 15 TL (I had to use my only “on” [10] and “beş” [5]!) as an apology. Many cabbies wouldn’t even offer that change without prompting.
By the way, people here seem to carry next to nothing with them, but a lot of money-takers have a very stubborn assumption that you will have near-exact change. There can be grumbling when “bir” (1) coins have to be brought out, which if you think of the statistics is going to happen most of the time, really.