lauren_s_kahn

Not everything went smoothly. The apartment in which I was living was broken into in Istanbul. Notfun at all.

The blog from hte entire trip is here: http://bit.ly/1kOZ6ld

If you are robbed overseas, be sure to talk to your homeowners' insurance. You can get partial reimbursement. Travelers' did fine. I have no complaints. Your travel insurance is generally only for lost luggage and medical, not for burglaries. Also, travel insurance offers less coverage than homeowners'.

You do have to get a statement from the police showing that you reported the incident to get reimbursed. That was a challenge in Turkey but everything worked out.

I am back home now and sorting the remaining things out. Fortunately, my old laptop was password protected. I changed all the passwords that had anything to do with money--a real pain in the neck, but, if they broke through the password on the computer, they could have access to my email and even change the passwords themselves. It wouldn't have been pretty.

The American Consulate was very helpful. They gave me access to a computer and helped with all the calls I needed to make to cancel credit cards. The burglary was a professional hit and mega amounts were charged on my credit cards before I could cancel--all to a bogus tour company (probably "owned" bu the burglars. I did have a list of all the credit card numbers and phone numbers printed out in my trip file--which saved a lot of time.

I had a very positive reaction to Turkey on my first trip in 2011. This time, well, I would not go back any time soon. It was not the burglary. They are supporting Hamas and there was antisemetic graffiti all over by the time I left. I was glad to leave. Here's what I had to say about that:

http://bit.ly/1owNelr

On the morning after the burglary I had no cash, no ATM card and 2 credit cards were gone. Fortunately they did not get two others. I ran around shoving those two credit cards in ATMs in Istanbul without success for awhile. Finally, I tried AKBank and I heard the sweet sound of a cash advance being dispensed via my Capital One card. My new ATM card eventually reached me at my next home exchange in Stockholm.

It wasn't the best of trips but I did survive and can now regale you with another travel disaster tale. The worst part was dealing with the Turkish police. Read the blog.

lauren_s_kahn

Sorry, I just checked the first link and it went nowhere. This one should reach the trip blog which details the burglary on the night of July 14-15, 2014:

http://altecockertravels.weebly.com/...nbul-2014.html

babelic

How scary that the burglars were in your bedroom while you were sleeeping - yuck. I´m sorry about your photos I hope that your Stockholm part went better?

lauren_s_kahn

The trip was actually all fine except for a couple of days wasted dealing with the burglary. I was in Europe for 9 weeks on a home exchange based trip to Krakow, Warsaw, Brest, Minsk, Istanbul and Stockholm. Belarus (Brest & Minsk) was the only part not based on home exchanges.

HappyTrvlr

We were robbed once while traveling and it does take a lot of time to report it and deal with getting replacements. A bummer for sure. I read your blog and your time in Sweden sounds like it went well.

NewbE

"antisemetic"?

Holly_uncasdewar

Just curious, lauren - why do you write your reports in the third person and refer to yourself as AlteCocker?

lauren_s_kahn

It is just part of my schtick on the blog, Holly.

rhkkmk

great reporting, I just wish you would drop the third person approach

lauren_s_kahn

rhkkmk, if you find my writing style that annoying, you do not have to read it. You constantly complain about the way I write on every thread. I am not going to change the way I write because you don't like it, as it has been successful for me. I will not miss your hits if you cease reading.