Photography

After Being Mugged In The Park, My Credit Card Company Did It Again

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A colorful canopy of parasols over an alley way in Balat, Istanbul Turkey.

Most of you probably read my account of getting drugged and robbed in Istanbul.

However I haven’t reported the mugging I got from one of my credit card issuers in the aftermath.

Typical scene in the quiet backstreets of Balat, Istanbul, Turkey.

While the drugging and robbery were over in an afternoon on July 2, the mugging by the bank occurred during the ensuing nine weeks as I tried to show that I was truly the victim of a crime and should have the fraudulent charges on my stolen credit card removed.

Just hope something like this never happens to you.

(Note: I’ve inserted some random photos of my recent three-month stay in Turkey that I haven’t shared yet, just to lighten the mood and show Turkey in a different, better light than what might be inferred from what happened to me in a single incident. Otherwise the photos are not specifically relevant to the post.)

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‘Chronicle of Georgia’: The Best, Least Visited Tour Site in Tbilisi

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Get a feel for the scale of the monument by looking at the benches and the couple on the steps.

Yesterday my friend had the urge at 7:30 a.m. to visit the Chronicle of Georgia, a colossal monument designed by world-renowned contemporary artist Zurab Tsereteli.

My friend roused me from a filmy sleep with a ping on Whatsapp asking if I wanted to join her. She needed to start early because of an online English class she taught in the early afternoon.

I had the monument on my list of places to see in Tbilisi so I agreed to meet her in an hour at the Marshanavili Metro Station.

The monument turned out to be well worth getting up for.

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Gone From Istanbul, Been to Barcelona, Now I’m in Georgia

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One of my favorite activities in Istanbul, Turkey, was riding the ferries across the Bosphorus and Golden Horn to visit the many different parts of this large and captivating city.

It’s been too long since I last posted. I was in Turkey at the time, which was two countries ago on my continuing journey.

For the past 11 days I’ve been in Georgia — the country, not the state — and before that I spent a week in Barcelona, Spain, where I visited a friend who I first met in 2017 in Medellin, Colombia.

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