Quarantine View from my Room

In my last post I covered the most essential part of quarantine—the food! Today I ordered my 2nd grocery delivery and it was delivered within 30 minutes. How’s that for service? I was very specific about what I ordered, and I got exactly what I wanted—except the Efes Light. They obviously don’t allow alcohol deliveries. Oh well, I guess I’m just going to have a very weak shandy with dinner tonight. In case you’re interested in joining me—that’s a 100% 7Up.

Deliveries

Even though I’m locked in my room (locked by me from the inside) and we have to stay in our rooms, we’re still visited regularly. There’s the twice daily meal deliveries, and our on-demand grocery deliveries. And the tea trolley makes regular rounds.

If the Pavlov hadn’t already established his Pavlovian theory of classical conditioning, I think spend my remaining quarantine time writing a scientific paper about how events can trigger a conditioned response. Instead of Pavlov’s dog responding to a bell, we respond to a short, sharp knock at our doors at meal times.

I have my own kettle and coffee supply, so I’m not conditioned to respond to the rattle of the tea trolley or his sing-song yodel “Çay. Kahve. Çay. Kahve.” and he wanders down the corridor. But I’m up like a shot when I hear the food delivery knock. Alert. Ears up and tail wagging.

Pavlov trained his dogs by ringing a bell when he fed them, and once they’d got used to this, he rang the bell without feeding them, and they became conditioned to salivate at the sound. I haven’t started a salivating in response the knock on the door yet, but maybe by day 10 my glands will be suitably trained and comply.

Emotional and Medical Wellbeing

There are other knocks at the door at different times, with people checking up on us. Here’s some of the visits we’ve had:

• Day One – Covid Test
• Day One – Man asking if we were ok
• Day Five – Lady asking if we were ok
• Day Six – Medical lady asking if we had symptoms or felt ill
• Day Ten – Man asking if we were ok, and offering to add my number to a WhatsApp group to keep me informed (too little too late!)
• Day Ten – Covid Test

(If I get any more visits I’ll add them to this list)

I’m on day six, so met the medical lady. She confirmed our next Covid test will be on day ten, and the results should be available in the morning of day 11. If it’s a negative result, we’re free to go.

I thought we had ten days in quarantine, but it turns out it’s ten nights but eleven days. So it seems I signed up for their Buy Ten, Get One Free deal without realising it.

In addition to these visits, there’s a help line to call for requests, but they don’t speak English. Not that helpful after all. I’m going to suggest they rebrand themselves.

Our Welcome Gift Pack

On the morning of our arrival we were given a pillowcase full of goodies. It reminded me of being a small child. When we were at our grandparents, Santa used to deliver our presents in a pillow case. When we were at home we had a stocking. I preferred the pillow case—it was bigger.

Our Quarantine kit included:

• Toothbrush and toothpaste
• Shampoo
• Bar of soap
• Imitation Crocs
• Toilet Cleaner

There was hand soap, a bath towel and a hand towel in the room. These towels are pretty thin, but do the job. If I’d packed more than hand luggage I would have brought my own bath towel, but I only had enough room for a hand towel, so I had something to use as a bath mat when getting out the shower. It’s tile, and slippery.

We were also given a supply of toilet rolls and a large kitchen roll (very handy for my watercolour activities). Bedding and a duvet was provided, and we had to make our own bed.

Room Facilities

I travelled alone, and I’m in a room with four beds. I’m in the one reserved for Goldilocks, but as it’s quarantine there’s no chance of anything warm and cuddly crawling into one of the other beds.

The room also has four desk areas, and chairs. Plenty of room to make myself at home. There’s plenty of sockets in the room. One beside each bed and one at each of the desks. There’s a private bathroom in the room, with a separate toilet, shower and sink.

The fridge is plenty roomy, and there was an ice tray for making ice cubes. I’m a bit nesh when it comes to being warm, but with the wall heater and the towel warmer, this room is plenty warm enough.

There’s a large window that opens and I have a lovely view of the Bosphorus and city. When I have the windows open during the day, I can hear the call to prayer. There’s a skate park across the street and during the week you can hear the skateboarders practicing their skills.

We’re about 8 miles north of SAW airport, which if you can reach your next destination from here, is a better bet than heading all the way back to IST (an hours drive away). The rumour mill says that on check-out day, you’re just kicked to the curb and have to make your own way to your airport of choice.

WiFi

When I arrived on Saturday, I was told it would be 24-hours to get WiFi. I called the help desk on Sunday, and they told me, tomorrow, tomorrow. But I still didn’t have any login information. On Monday I asked my Turkish neighbour if they had WiFi. That’s when I learned that unlike our English welcome instructions which didn’t come with any WiFi information, the Turkish version came with all the necessary information.

New Arrival

It’s noon, and there was a knock at my door. I went to retrieve my lunch (still no salivation), and there’s a new arrival in the room opposite. Her suitcases were still just inside the door, and she looked shell-shocked. I told her to let me know if she had any questions, and her first questions was “is there wifi?”.

It’s interesting that out of all the basic needs we have, connectivity is our top priority. I know if I had a choice of food or WiFi, I’d be eating my own fist by day 7. I think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs requires an update.

Connections

As well as the official visits and information sharing, there’s an underground network of knowledge sharing.

I had my window open today and I smelt cigarette smoke. My English neighbour from Kusadasi was having a sly smoke, so we had a chat out the window.

She’s leaving the same day as me and was worried about taking an internal flight because she didn’t have a HES code, so I took her WhatsApp number and said I’d send her the information for getting one. I couldn’t find her listed, so wrote out the instructions, put on my mask, unlocked my door, quickly jogged to her door to slide the instructions underneath it. Knocked then ran. I wonder if she salivated?

I’m grateful for my Turkish neighbours for their help with the WiFi. They also said they’d help me translate if I need to call the help desk.

The English lady two doors away, let me know that the grocery number on our information sheet was incorrect, which helped to explain why my first grocery order didn’t get a response. She gave me the correct WhatsApp number to call.

One of the reasons for writing these blog posts is to pass on my knowledge to anyone else who ends up at Maltepe. Knowledge is power. The more you know the sooner you can get into your groove and embrace your time in quarantine.

Read More about my Quarantine adventures