Adventures from my career in Travel and Tourism

About this blog

As most folks that have been tuning into my show for over a decade already know, my first career is in Travel and Tourism. I have a bachelors degree on languages, literature and education, specializing in Italian, from the University of Istanbul, where I took an additional year of classes on psychology and education ( enough to be U.S .equivalent of a minor in psychology), and interned in the Private Italian High School- prep class. If anyone ever wonders about energetic people and their interactions, try to teach as an intern in a prep school. Those eleven year olds, learning their first foreign language, would give you a run for your money and then some, I'm telling you.

The class was practically a solid entity of life and energy, brimming with inquisitive and mischievous minds that hit you like a brick of lightning infused with triple shots of espresso with a Red Bull chaser.

Thankfully, having been a student myself for as long as I had, and having graduated from private schools like the young guns I was interacting with, I knew exactly where they were coming from. You have to realize that a new 22 year old intern girl is so much more exciting for them to deal with than their regular, strict grammar teacher. Quick reflexes and similar backgrounds helped me successfully maneuver their initial attempts in pranks, and being able to back that up with actual knowledge on the subject that was being taught in the classroom, soon led them to decide that I was alright.

My last year in college, where I was taking these education classes to have teaching formation added to my diploma in literature, I was also working full time in Istanbul Hilton's casino, responsible of the slot machines (that's how I saved the money to come to the States as a student, and paid for my own tuition as well as housing for the semester up front).

There were four of us, close girlfriends, that we all worked for the casino at night and went to college majoring in literature during the day. After working eight hours at night at the casino, attending the poker, slot, horse race machines, paying off jackpots-(when they actually occurred), and opening credits- (which happened all night), I would go home get a few hours of sleep and get up and go to school shortly after that.

I had a blast doing my internship in the Italian High School, teaching eleven year olds who were as enthusiastic about knowledge and exploring a new foreign language, as I was when I was in prep school.

In my sophomore year in college, I had taken some seminars through a private travel agency and had learned about organizing, coordinating and running both incoming and outgoing operations. Then I went on a tour as an intern with a group of professional tour leaders, to Greece and to Italy to learn the ropes first hand, so to speak.

I've been everywhere in Greece, everywhere in Italy, including the city of Vatican, the island Capri, the Republic of San Marino, many times. In addition to that, I've been to South France like Monte Carlo and Monaco, and to Cyprus. I also had a day tour in London, England before I came to the States, flying with British Airlines, when I had extra time in my hands, in between flights. I would take groups from everywhere in the world around Istanbul, to the cathedrals built in the time of the Roman Empire, to the mosques built in the time of the Ottoman Empire, to the palaces, to the citadels, to the castles, to the fortresses etc. You know, your typical European package tour that lets you get a glimpse of thousands of years of history and architecture.

Anyway, the reason I got in to this subject is to write about my last trip to Europe; Every time I visit friends and family in Turkey for a couple of months- which I used to do almost every year until my show interfered, I would also contact the travel and tourism agencies that I had worked with during college and find out about their outgoing operations to Italy. If the conditions seemed appealing ( the cities scheduled to be seen, the dates, the rates, the hotels and restaurants to utilize etc.), I would take a four day tour package and get to visit my adapted country, while getting paid for it.

That is exactly what I did the last time I visited Europe.

It has been about a decade since I've been there, and I'm hell-bent on not visiting Europe that I love, until I receive the compensation for my ongoing show. I'm not talking only about monetary compensation which is well earned and long over due; but I'm also talking about the respect and recognition that I've been waiting to receive for the success of my show that has created a new genre in the show biz.

The last time I went to Europe, the producers of my show manipulated my life to such an extend that, I am protecting myself and my loved ones from that at all costs, until I receive a fair and just contract that will compensate for all the entertainment that has been provided.

First shocker came when I called up my ex-boyfriend, with whom I stayed as friends, since the only reason I broke up with him was I had made the decision to move to the States and build a life here, way before I met him. We had an unusually deep connection and had such a lovely relationship that, after I graduated from college and was set to come to the States, as a student to study business in upstate NY, I postponed it for one full term and scheduled my arrival for the Spring Semester, as opposed to Fall Semester that I had already been accepted for, just to get to spend some more time with my then boyfriend, Murat. I've never laughed so much with anyone in my life as I have laughed with him, and I will always miss that, but the decision was made.

As I said, up until my very last trip where my show crew followed me to Europe, I used to travel to overseas once a year, and every time I arrived in Istanbul, I would give Murat a call, and instantly he would hop in his car and pick me up from my parents house and we would go out and catch up over drinks in a bar or a club.

To this day, I yearn for the times that he would make laugh over drinks to such a point that I would have tears coming out of my eyes. We could talk about anything. He's a chemical engineer working in textile business owning his own company now, and when we were dating, he also used to play basketball. He is 6'5", and looks like a brunette Dolph Lundgren.

This time, when I told him that I was here, he kind of tried to stall our meeting, suggesting we could chat a bit on the phone. Did I hear that right? Chat a bit on the phone? This is one of the manliest men I've ever known. He would never want to waste time talking about his feelings over the phone. This is the kind of man who drops the phone, hops in his car and picks me up in a heartbeat, no matter what his social life was like.

As he later, after I returned to the States, and called him up, confessed that, Scott had contacted him and wanted me to go out with Murat to a night club where he could show up with his friends, like we all bumped into each other. By chance. In Istanbul. That's my Scott to you.

Since I've been living with Scott's manipulations and dishonesty ever since I first met him in January 1996, I started resisting the situation. It all ended up being a trip, believe it or not, where my Scott got to hang out with my ex-boyfriend, and worked out together at Murat's gym- which is an awesome gym right on the water, on Bosphorous with tennis courts, racketball courts, swimming pools, spa rooms etc. I didn't get to see my own ex-boyfriend on that trip.

After my return to the States, when I was living in my house in Jacksonville Florida, as I was talking to Murat on the phone, he told me that Scott could never possibly make me happy, because he was the most self centered human being he had ever met, and he met people from all over the world due to his textile export business.

OK, I know what you are thinking; There's a bit of a conflict of interest when the ex-boyfriend of a person gives his opinion and advice on a girl's current love life. I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean his observation was wrong.

Scott and I have been intimately involved since April, and despite the soaring ratings of my show, when we are together, Scott hasn't taken me out on my birthday ( a cardinal sin in a relationship if there is one), on 4th of July, on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, OR on New Year's Eve. You decide if the man I'm involved with is selfish and manipulative or not.

I'm writing this chapter on January 9th of 2011, I still haven't reached the day, where the tears of misery that Scott makes me shed are behind me yet. The guy can't stop taking me for granted, always finding some twisted reason to justify his own actions to himself.

Just in case you were wondering how we wasted fifteen years of our lives without enjoying a happy, healthy and honest relationship.

You can not build happiness over lies...

Anyhow, the main point of this chapter is for me to get to write about the trip I took to Italy when I visited Turkey. My agency had a couple of planes chartered, and we had tour buses with Italian drivers waiting for us at the airport, where each one of us tour leaders would usher our groups to the assigned buses that would take us to our respective hotels.

This was a New Year's Eve tour, by the way. We had hotels booked in Rome, and we, as tour leaders were also negotiated to sell extra tours to Florence, Naples, Pompeii etc. The New Year's Eve was to be spent in Rome, of course, which is a fantastic place to enter a New Year in.

I've always had this tradition with fellow tour guides where, after finishing our daily tours, we would get together in a specific piazza in Rome, purchase some bottles of seemingly flowing champagne/sparkling wine that was being sold on almost every street in the honor of the New Year's Eve, and just have a blast.

Not, anymore. No, sir. The producers of my show had manipulated my trip to such an extend that the tour guides that I was meant to meet with, not only were twarted from getting together with me, but I also had to endure seeing this blond chick Scott picked up in New York City, when she walked up to me and took a picture of my face, standing about an inch and a half from the tip of my nose, before I burst in to tears. I had first seen her in the start line of a half-marathon that I did, in the Central Park. Scott had actually flown for 10 hours, one way, with that woman sitting beside him in the plane.

That was the first New Year of my life where I bawled like a baby, instead of having a blast, but unfortunately it wouldn't be the last. I don't want you to go all "Awwww, poor thing", on me so I'm switching to the part where you could literally see steam coming out of my ears ( if you have good visualization skills, that is).

When we first arrived at our hotel where we had reservations made through the agency, I walked up to the front desk to check my tourists in.

If you are not familiar with Travel & Tourism business, let me make it clear here, that the tour leader almost always gets the best room, best restaurants, comped at every opportunity, and commissions over all the purchases made from a store- say, shoe factory outlet, for bringing her group in. It's a billion dollar business, folks. That's why people try to work with people they know and trust, as there is a lot at stake.

The tour leader is expected to know everything, which is not possible, but tell that to the tourists. Especially in a country like Italy where everything has a historical value, they bombard you with a zillion questions, for which you have to be well prepared. It's a business where the tour guide is required to have immense knowledge on history, geography, arts, in addition to having quick problem solving skills as Italians are not the most punctual folks among the Europeans, and anything can happen. Tour leader is the go-to person who is responsible of everything- regardless if it makes sense or not.

Here I was, checking my tourists in to the hotel, and all of a sudden I discover something that just doesn't happen in this business. My agency had faxed the rooming plans in a way that put me in the same room with a tourist!...

I did what I had to do, finished the check in, sent the people to their rooms to unpack, then called up the agency in Turkey. Then I called up another agency in London, England called Gulliver's Travels, through which my then agency called Allegro had booked the reservations.

All through which, I was arguing with the unsuspecting front desk people in Italian, trying to figure out how on earth such a hideous mistake could occur. There came a point, I was yelling in Turkish into one phone to the bookers in my agency, and expressing my frustration loudly in English, on the second phone I was holding to my other ear, to the folks in London, while trying to hold my ground on the verbal spar I was having in Italian with the concierge in my hotel.

If you had a decent quality camera and took a picture of me in that very moment, I have absolutely no doubt that you would have been able to capture the steam coming out of my ears.

Since it was New Year's Eve time and everything was fully booked, and then some, nobody was able to do anything to change the situation and I ended up sharing my room with a tourist. I would literally pull the sheets over my head and cry in frustration at night, since by going to Europe, after suffering the oppressive manipulation of the producers of my show in the States, I was hoping to enjoy some freedom and happiness. Europe has always been a place of freedom, abundance, joy and prosperity for me. Not anymore, as my show was on, and every action I took had my crew scrambling for some footage.

I am pretty sure, the tourist lady in the next bed heard me crying, but she was too polite to bother me.

Don't get me wrong; I love my show, and I love how popular and successful it is, to the point of providing an income to the most untalented women in Hollywood, who get paid to hang out in front of the cameras, being provided for by the producers of my show. It has single handedly revolutionized the industry, and as many shows run their course and eventually get canceled, my show is only getting bigger after almost 13 years.

So, I wouldn't have any problem with it, if my rights were protected under a contract, and if I were receiving a decent payment for being put on camera so often. This was before the 24/7 broadcast of my show started, but it was being filmed often enough that I was getting suffocated.

I'm more than happy about being broadcast while explaining the history and the architectural details of St. Peter's Cathedral, when I was standing in the city of Vatican with my tourists around me. It's actually a very rewarding experience.

Same thing as I was walking down the streets in Florence, bringing my group in front of the amazing cathedral called Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore. These are all phenomenal experiences that I got paid to enjoy, through my career in the Travel & Tourism business that I had accomplished.

If my producers had the technology they have today, I know that they would have simply organized the situation where a crew member would have one of my ever present surveillance camera/smoke detectors on the wall of my room, and there would be no need to manipulate the folks in my agency to be able to have a lady passenger booked into my room.

When the trip ended and we flew back to Istanbul, I walked in to my agency to get the accounting of the trip done.

I banged the door open to the office of the management team, demanding an explanation. You might think that was a bit dramatic, but not for that situation, and certainly not in a Mediterranean country. "What? A tourist in my room?", I yelled with what I hoped was my most indignant and mollified expression as I was seeking justice.

After they mumbled a bit, I got it out of them that this American guy had made the request, making it sound like a great surprise being put together for me and they didn't want to ruin it and decided to play along, as long as it didn't affect the outcome of the booked trip.

There wasn't much for me to do after that point other than seethe, so I seethed.

To this day I still get to have the wondrous joy of experiencing days in my life, where Scott makes me seethe, and I sometimes wonder if my blind loyalty to him is misplaced on the wrong guy. But for the life of me, I can't think of another man that I want more than Scott, which leads me to wonder if I'm a bit of a masochist.