Parts of the city I love and hate

I love İstanbul. It has something for everyone. However there is one part of town I never liked much: Sultanahmet. It is the most touristic district by far, and I don't really like tourists. I don't like tourists much because I feel that a lot of them just take pictures and a souvenir and otherwise don't really give a damn about the culture, language, politics and/or what I would call the 'real lives' of the people here. I suppose that's always the complaint about tourists.

So here's the thing... I don't hate them so much anymore. In fact it's been so long since I saw a bunch of tourists that it's kind of fun to see them and they make me really curious. Anyway, I was in Sultanahmet and that queasiness I was expecting to get never came. Indeed I sort of enjoyed myself. I even went there twice this weekend.

The first trip was to several market places including the so called Grand Bazaar. I had a few items on my shopping list. One fellow in particular on my mind was Brett, who briefly told me of his most recent trip to the bazaar in 1974 and how, but more interestingly why, he bought a cane. I saw some canes and thought of his story.


Being in Sultanahmet with my pal Stewart from work, we stopped at the carpet shop in which he used to work. I had been there once before and the warm greetings, delightful conversation and free beer was waiting once again. However, this time there was something else. They had a craftswoman making a carpet. What a thing to observe! That was Saturday.

Sunday was glorious. I met the sisters and a cousin of one of my friends from work. This included a walk through Kadıköy to the docks and a trip to Sultanahmet. When we got to the docks, I saw something that made me really quite happy. The Social Democratic Party was having a traffic-stopping march. I love to see people out on the street representing their political views. It shows that people care in a world where it seems all too few do.

It seems that most Turks living is İstanbul pretty much never go to Sultanahmet, despite the high concentration of historical sites and similar attractions. So my trip there with my new friend was more of a trip for her than for me, even though she has lived in İstanbul all her life and I only just came here.

The whole weekend was really nice, especially since the weather was nice. Monday was ok, too. In the evening on Monday, I went to Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium to witness the chaos of the Fenerbahçe fans getting ready for a big match.

On my way there, one thought I kept having was that it is too bad I am not a Fenerbahçe fan. I mean, how convenient would it be, given how close I am to the stadium. I thought of my friends and acquaintances in the US who are Fenerbahçe fans and how jealous they must be of me in that moment, standing in front of the stadium with money enough in my pocket for a ticket.

Zekeriyaköy bazaar! ...and then a nice boat ride

At work today, the children went on a field trip to the Zekeriyaköy bazaar. I was invited along. I really like these small markets and they are especially enjoyable visually since there are so many different colored fruits and vegetables.

Of course with all that fresh food around, I had to buy something. I
quickly decided that I wouldn't mind a kilo of those grapefruits. It was also fun to watch the teachers and children shopping together. The children selected fruits they wanted and the teachers would help facilitate the purchase. Like a child myself, I walked around most of the time with one of the teachers, constantly asking her "what's that called? what's that called?". "Enginar," she told me in one case. Then she would ask me what it's called in English. "Artichoke," I replied.

I missed the boat home by 2 minutes. At first I was bummed but then I didn't mind because the sun was on its way down and the view would be better 30 minutes later. I figured since I had waited for the next boat, I should get as much out of it as possible. I took lots of pictures including these ones.

A very typical boat. I felt like such a tourist taking this photo.

The view of Kadıköy, my hometown in Turkey, from the water

It's still just me!

What I left out of the last post

- Stew and I went to the European side to see the Rangers-Celtic match in a pub that shows all the games.

- While there we met a Scottish/Turkish couple. We stopped watching the game to chat with them. They were very friendly and we might meet them again this week.

- All of a sudden this girl from work whom I kinda like called me. I had tried a few weeks ago to get her to come over to Kadıköy to hang out, but no such luck. Suddenly she calls saying that she's in Kadıköy and where am I. !!! I mean seriously, the one time I leave the neighborhood... but alas, I think in the end it was better that I wasn't there.


- When we got off the boat, we heard these Americans speaking and Stew tried out his American accent on me which always cracks me up. We found out later that evening that one of the girls had heard him and decided to see where we were from. That's how we met the ladies and extended the evening.

- At the end of the night when we left, one of the girls went to shake my hand, but I handed her my phone as if that's why she held out her hand. The number was entered.

- Two weeks ago I made a list of 3 things I wanted to achieve in the short term in order to be happy and make others happy. The were: Make a new friend, buy things for the folks back home, and apply to a bunch of new jobs. Well, I'm making progress on all three of those and it has really boosted my mood.

The recent past and recent present

The following are some photos I took over the last couple months of various special moments.

Upper left, we have Ayhan, my friend, as I'm teaching him the game of cribbage. I have NEVER met a Turkish person who knows how to play the game. In fact roughly 90% of the folks I talk to here have never heard of it. This amazes me because its luck-to-skill ratio, segmented progression and routine style of play, is perfectly in line with popular games here such as backgammon and okey. I think the game would catch on here if people only knew it. Anyway, continuing counter-clockwise with the photos, we have the Wednesday bazaar in Sarıyer. I bought half a kilo of mushrooms, a kilo of tomatoes and a kilo of clementines.

Next we have a very specıal moment. I drank the last of the really good beers from Denmark with Stewart at a favorite pub of ours. Then we enjoyed some baklava that he brought from ANTEP!! We were so spoiled that evening. Lastly, there's the nostalgic tramway in İstiklâl, Taksim. It was decked out for the holidays and I thought it looked a bit dumb, so I took a picture.

Those four pictures were taken with my phone, but this next picture was from my camera one morning on my way to work. Some days I work on the European side and I have to take a boat. The view while waiting at the docks at sunrise is... not bad.

Those shots were all fairly random and spanned a couple months. These next few are from earlier today.

There's a new tramvay car and Stew and I were just lucky enough to finally catch it. Isn't it pretty? The interior was a much smarter, more spacious design than the old tramvay cars.

We visited the original end of the famous Orient Express, instead of just passing by. There's an old restaurant there. By old I mean 120 years old. This is at the Istanbul Gar in Sirkeci.

After a few pints, it seemed comical and appropriate to take pictures of ourselves wearing Stew's hat.

 

 

The evening wore on, and as we got off the boat back in Kadıköy, we met some friendly ladies who had recently moved to İstanbul. So we went out for beer with them. The Galatasaray match was on, and to my surprise they were winning. However, this one guy sitting near us was cheering whenever GS got scored on and I knew what was going on. Our eyes met and I began kindly flipping out on him about why he was cheering for GS's demise when even to a Fenerbahçe fan, it shouldn't make a difference given the circumstances of this season. We had a lively conversation and it felt really good to speak a bunch of Turkish fast and with passion. Anyway, those guys were awesome and I'll probably visit that bar during the match next weekend to see if I run into them again.

Altogether it was an excellent weekend. I called home to my father who turned 60. I talked a lot with my brother as well. I went out, I stayed home, I was industrious, I was lazy, calm.