Some actual things about Istanbul (proof that we're really here...kinda)

Since we're still experiencing technical difficulties (read: miscommunications between Mark and me as to where the photos were saved and my unwillingness to leave the internet cafe and come back again), we'll have to forego the pictures for this moment and allow me to continue our story without further elaboration yet on the physical state of our flat. I'm leaving in the bits that annotate where a picture ought to be, because we'll post them later and most of this consists of captions to said photos. It's merely a ploy to keep the suspense and keep y'all coming back for more. Or to spoil it for you when the pictures are really there. Either way, I win.

This was written two days ago, but I'm just getting to post it now...

So here we are, sweltering in our flat at 7:45 on our third day in Kadiköy (our neighborhood, which doesn’t actually show up on the average map of İstanbul – it’s south of the main action on the Asian side). All in all, I’d say things are going swimmingly, but I’m sure y’all want juicier details than that.

London

Not a whole lot to tell. We rather impressively rampaged the main tourist attractions in the 48 hours we had: Globe Theatre, British Museum, ParliamentBig Ben (it was a bit funny that they were showing V for Vendetta on the plane to London), Buckingham, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden/West End, and a generally walking tour of Pimlico, where our awesome hostel was.

Arriving in İstanbul

Unfortunately, we didn’t take really any pictures until today, because we’ve been kinda busy trying to, you know, survive. But I’ll start from the beginning. The airport was mostly a breeze. Visa: check – Passport: check – Customs: nobody even looked our way. It was getting out of the airport that posed some problems. We were told to take a taksi from the airport to the school, where someone would meet us there to pay the driver. The man at tourist information seemed to think this was an awful idea because no driver would know where the address we needed would be, and that we should take a bus across the Boğazı (Bosphorus), and then find a cab there. However, we couldn’t quite figure out where this bus would be taking us. We met a girl who spoke a bit of English (everyone here seems to know at least a few words, a bit like Americans and Spanish, I guess), but she’d never been to the airport before and was a bit confused herself. So, after much deliberation between Mark and me, we decided to take a cab. The man directing the taksis knew English, and explained the situation to the driver, who ended up being most pleasant and communicating rather well with must his hands, and the drive was rather nice, despite the ridiculous rush-hour traffic. [An interesting side-note: we saw a wedding caravan, which consisted of the bridal car decorated with flowers and a bunch of cars behind it, all with their flashers on and towels tied around their driver’s side mirrors]. Now we know that it really does take 2 hours to get from one side of the city to the other, even with the most deft (and death-defying) of drivers.

Arriving in Kadiköy was harried, as both the foot and car traffic continued to be quite stifling (people just walk in front of cars here, and cars just honk and drive through people, especially in the small streets (or sokaks) on which we live – I’m amazed more people don’t get hit). The taksi driver carried half of our luggage and led us up through these tiny market sokaks to the Kent English school. A man named Ismail came to the door and indeed paid the driver willingly, though he seemed to be astonished that it cost 100ytl (good thing we didn’t have to pay – we only had 60ytl on us). And so Ismail took us under his wing. He brought us to our flat, told us how to get to the water and where the supermarket was, and then we were on our own for the night. We unpacked, ate some granola bars, and went to bed.

The next morning we got up early and went exploring. We were also starting to get hungry, so we wandered about looking for a place to eat. Mark wanted to just stop in somewhere, but I was strangely anxious about our first real interaction with these crazy people called Türks, so I made him keep wandering, until finally some guy who mistook us for German and spoke English swooped down on us and sat us down at a place for tea. Mark was reluctant, wisely perhaps, but I was so made at myself for being chicken that I just went for it. So, we had a cup of çay (tea) and chatted with this man, who turned out to be quite pleasant. Then he showed us a place where we could actually eat, and ordered for us. It ended up being an expensive but fabulous meal that was more than filling, and we managed to ask the waiter what had been ordered for us after about half-an-hour: mixed kebap. We still don’t know exactly what we ate, but it was wonderful, even if the spices were a little…er, exotic for our digestive systems. We would find out later that this is one of the favorite places of the locals, so good on us for being lucky when we could’ve been swindled, I suppose.

Ismail had told us to come back to Kent to get a map and some other info from him, so we checked there, but he wasn’t in. The secretaries who spoke some English told us to come back in an hour…three times. This was all fine, though, because we had nowhere really to be, and we just meandered around our little district. There are a million shops on the little streets, selling bread and appliances and cellphones and shoes, and some open markets, and a sort of financial/shopping district on the main drag a few blocks away. It actually feels a bit like the market in Seattle, really, but somehow more authentic and slightly shoddier. Also, our flat seems to be in the particularly bookstore-heavy part of the area, which is wonderfully exciting. There’s a place just down the street from us that sells English and Western classics translated into English (from Austen to Tolstoy) for 6.50ytl (which turns out to be about $4), so we shouldn’t ever run out of reading materials. We also made our first successful venture into the supermarket, Migros – where they do have cereal and pasta and chicken and yogurt, and just about everything else we could want…except, strangely enough, couscous. We also made our first purchases at the open produce markets, which are quite remarkable and CHEAP – we even managed to order in Turkish.

Ah yes, the Turkish. You’ll pick it up much faster when you’re there, everyone said. Well, that’s for sure. Our phrasebooks have already been put through the paces, but we’ve also really started in on the lessons Ian gave us to try to learn the actual fundamentals of the language. It’s not easy, but even just after two days we’re starting to pick it up, I think. It’s clearly going to be awhile before we’re even conversational, but at least now we can get through the formalities of the hi-how-are-yous with some success. I think we’ll be pretty good at this rate. We met a British woman yesterday who has been here since March and said that it’s almost impossible unless you use it all the time, but we decided she just wasn’t trying very hard.

Today we slept in quite a bit (I had been kept awake through the night by the sounds of the neighborhood, especially the gulls, which sound like Michigan gulls on that have finally come out the other side of puberty), and then got up and moseyed down to the water. Here’s some of the view from the ferry port.

It’s rather hazy since it was so hot today (we don’t have a thermometer, but I’d guess it’s about what’s happening at home) and because of the smog, but you can see the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya (Topkapı Palace is just out of sight to the right of the frame and not much to see from this far away). This is a ten minute walk from out flat. Pretty sweet.

This is a railway station that was given to the city as a gift from…guess who? Hmm…Nazi flag…German architecture…Evet! Kaiser Wilhelm! Isn’t it lovely?

I actually really like this monument, because it represents one of my favorite things in the history of the Republic of Turkey. Basically, we’re seeing Atatürk reinventing the Turkish, eliminating the Arabic script and any Arabic/Persian vocabulary in favor of the Latinate alphabet and a pure Turkish language. It was a top-down linguistic revolution, essentially, which worked because only 7% of the population was literate…anyway, I’ll spare you the details. It’s fascinating, though. Notice that the people to the left are full-grown adults, and yet remarkably smaller than Atatürk in all ways. The great leader was only about 5’5”, I believe.

The sounds are the most striking things. We can very easily hear the call to prayer from the nearby mosque, though it sounds strangely amplified (because it is) and a little tinny. Last night there was a boy playing a melancholy flute in the streets. Later this afternoon, in the flat, I was listening to the family in our back courtyard jabbering away and someone playing the cello in one of the adjacent buildings. Cats get into fights (the cats here are as prevalent as squirrels in A2, though less intimidating, and often sleep on top of cars, which is quite cute), and the door to our building is right next to our flat door, so it always sounds like someone’s breaking in.

Phew. I think that’s been about it for our adventure so far. I’m not sure if I’ll ever have that much to write again, but just thought we’d get our initial impressions out there.