I returned to the consulate today to get the document attestation. It took rather longer than I had hoped. First, there was a wait – no one at the desk. Then there was another form to fill out. Then papers to sign. Then I was told to come back in an hour. I came back in about 90 minutes. There was no one at the desk. Twenty minutes later someone appeared and told me that I would have to wait a bit longer. Then, twenty minutes later, at last it was done. Could have been worse, but could definitely have been better if I had used the good old phone-call-from-someone-in-Islamabad technique. It might have taken about as long, but at least I would have waited in a nice sitting room with a cup tea and doubtless felt very important and like a proper begum sahib. However, one thing that is certain is that I am not a begum sahib, and the thought of being one makes me blench.
Anyhow, it’s done. During the 1 hour wait I explored the area a bit, a fairly quiet residential part of town, with several consulates of Middle Eastern countries. I found a phone shop and got my SIM card – I’d decided not to get one from the airport as they are badly overpriced. I got it for 100 liras less, still probably overpriced, but oh well. This took only fifteen minutes, so I spent the rest of the time at a small cafe with outdoor seating under cool shady trees. I had a pleasant Turkish coffee and got slightly confused as the waiter asked me something, I said no, and only later realised the word he’d used was something like ‘saada’ which means ‘plain’ in Urdu and it seems the same in Turkish, as the Turkish coffee came without sugar. The Turkish accent or perhaps intonation can sound like Urdu in the distance, though nothing like it close up, and there are many words that are shared. Somehow I find it harder to remember Turkish words because of the slight differences – the slightly different pronuncations, especially of the vowels, and more than that, the use of Latin script which really throws me in a way that its use for Bahasa (with many similar words to Urdu, from both Sanskrit and Arabic) did not.
A curious detail about the Pakistani consulate: the large courtyard where one waits for the officials is red-tiled, with a large, smiling nursery school caterpillar picked out in yellow and blue tiles. Maybe the building is formerly that of a kindergarten? There is one next door. Anyway, peculiar.