The plan is to take a dolmuş down to the phone place to pick up our new mobile and then take a second dolmuş back to the Blue Song for a beer at the Friday Foreign Residents gathering. But as with all best laid plans, as Robbie Burns said, not precisely what happens. Actually what he said was the plans “gang after agley” - translatable as often go awry.
We get to the phone place all right. Phone no problem but provider contract involves truly astonishing amount of personal info including passports. Also ask for parents’ names! This last not an unprecedented request in Cyprus and we have experienced it when going for dental x-rays. Assume it’s down to the frequent duplication of names here. If there are a great many Hasan Çeliks or, in the South, Andreas Georgious, it can be helpful to separate them by parents’ names in the records. Process triggers faint memories of the only other place that wanted a prohibitive amount of information, which was Italy - where we decided that for a weekend there was no need to bother communicating. Although Canada surprised us when our first experience buying sims involved requests for personal info. At that point we had only bought them in the UK where it had been about as simple as buying a candy bar. Here in TRNC the lovely girl is also required to ask for not one but two phone numbers to be used “in case of emergency”. Could be friend or foreign number she says helpfully. We give her D’s and our own UK mobile numbers. But struggle to imagine what sort of emergency would lead to these numbers being used. Earthquake? Criminal activity? Unpaid bills? And what use would the numbers we provide be?
The process not instant, but we leave with the new mobile and have nearly an hour before we’re due at Blue Song. So decide to investigate Sokmar, nearby supermarket larger than our local one. Good produce and a nice deli section and supplies bulk peanuts - as well as J’s favourite Turkish chocolate bars (well, ok, my favourites as well).
However, discover when we’re ready to leave that the previously threatening skies are now delivering torrential rain. Have in fact brought rain jackets in the backpack but this calls for ponchos and rubber boots. And dolmuşes are hailed from the roadside not awaited at bus shelters - which are mostly non-existent anyway. Eventually catch one and ask if it will go to Blue Song. Yes. But realise after a couple of turns that this would be by a circuitous route that will pass much closer to home first. So bail out early, almost literally, and home to dry clothes, hot tea, and whisky.
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