Anna in Istanbul

Some days, someone, somewhere is conspiring against you.

Yesterday morning for example. Sick of this Nescafe business, I brought back some wonderful Swedish coffee from Stockholm. I made myself a nice big cup to help shake off the blues of a rainy morning; the stove got extra hot extra quickly just for me, french press worked perfectly, and then enter human error. Turns out the Salt Jar and the Sugar Jar look remarkable similar…

Someone, somewhere…

Last weekend, I took a wonderful trip to Stockholm in order to avoid the wrath of a flawed Turkish visa system. My first flight took me through Vienna where I remembered why I don’t particularly like Austria. Okay before anyone jumps on my back and punches me to the rhythm of Beethoven’s 5th (duh-duh-duh-duhhhhh… duh-duh-duh-duuuuuuuh! How’s that for a visual), we ALL have places that don’t strike our fancy. There’s just something about Mozart being plastered everywhere that makes me slightly sad inside. The city seems to have a more bitter version of the Istanbullu hüzün; that depressed mentality that comes when one lives in a former empire.

Stockholm was cold but beautiful. The cobbled streets, the painfully effective public transportation system, even the air felt like it had been put through committee, cleaned, re-cleaned, made environmentally friendly, given a good healthcare plan, re-approved by committee and then sprayed with a bit of Pine Sol for my breathing pleasure.

Now that I’ve had a taste, I’m excited to go back for a week in October to explore a bit more. So many reasons to love Stockholm. (Plus, that whole “Viking” Empire has been dead and dusty for so long, I think they’ve kind of gotten over themselves unlike SOME other countries I might mention COUGHAUSTRIATURKEYCOUGH).

I recognize that this former-Empire-Blues-hating is complete hubris on my part. Especially being from the current Empire that, thank you SEC, is finally noticing the sand in our foundation. I probably dislike Austria because I see my country’s future; desperately hawking Bob Dylan schwag at airports to haughty tourists from China or Brazil.

On arriving home in Istanbul, I was greeted by a few electrical storms around the city. I’ve never seen so much lightning as I have in the past few days. There is something so theatrical about stormy weather over the Bosphorus especially given the city’s history. Even the contentious name of Mehmet the Conqueror’s taking of Constantinople (“The Sack of Constantinople” or the “Conquest of Constantinople” depending on your side of the Crusades) indicates how the city’s sense of melodrama goes hand in hand with its weather patterns.

The following day, with thunder claps still threatening the city, I made my way over to the Asian side to the house of one of my English students. After spending so long in Southern California, I wasn’t sure if Istanbullu followed the LA approach to weather commonly known as One-Drop-Of-Rain-And-We’re-Calling-FEMA. I sent my student a message asking whether or not the ferries still ran during thunderstorms and she sent me back the adorable, T9-mistake riddled response, “Don’t Worry. Fries are very successful in stormy weather…”

On the bus ride over to the ferry stop in Beşiktaş, I saw an old man standing on the street, surveying his domain. A little boy making his way from school was walking hand-in-hand with his father and I saw the old man smile warmly at the boy, not in a familiar way but like someone appreciating youthful exhuberance. As the boy passed, the old man patted him on the head.

At the ferry stop, my Akbil (metro pass) was out of money. The boat was just about to leave and the man behind me was waiting to use the turnstile as I tried in vain to make my pass work. He looked at me and said, “here you are, sister” and used his Akbil to let me through.

I found myself a spot on the top deck of the ferry. The benches were wet from the rain and as I was about to just deal with wet pants, a middle aged woman came over to me with a newspaper. She said, “Come. Sit here.” and spread out the paper over the bench for the two of us to sit. We rode the rest of the way in silence with wonderfully dry bums.

From the Üsküdar Ferry stop on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, I took a Dolmuş to my student’s house farther inland. The Dolmuş system, essentially a shared cab, is wonderfully personal. You get on the small bus, hand the driver your money depending on where you’re going, and avoid sitting at the front. If you end up in the seat closest to the driver, you are responsible for collecting money from everyone else and getting change. Interaction with strangers is not optional.

When I the Dolmuş got stuck in traffic, I got out to make my own way. Stupidly relying on my directional skills in this new neighborhood, I quickly became hopelessly turned around. I grabbed a cab to take me over to where I needed to be. On our way, the driver and I started talking. He asked me all the normal questions; where are you from? what do you do? which futbol team do you support? I said–and I know there are a few people who are going to be very smug when I say this–that I support Beşiktaş. He was ecstatic, threw his hand into the backseat to shake my hand, saying “Yes! Beşiktaş!” He then went on to tell me about all the mascots of the big teams here in Istanbul. The Galatasaray Lions, the Beşiktaş Black Eagles, and the Fenerbahçe Yellow Canaries. It’s the last one that always gets me in trouble. I learned, early on, a very offensive name for the Fenerbahçe Canaries that essentially translates to “submissive canary”. Forgetting that I was in a cab with a stranger, albeit a Beşiktaş supporter, I said in my ridiculous Turkish “Yes! yes! I know the mascots! They call Fenerbahçe…” The cabbie almost crashed he started laughing so hard that this small, foreign girl who was going to give an English lesson had just said something ridiculously offensive. When we got to where I needed to be, he didn’t charge me. He just laughed and sent me on my way.

After the lesson, I made my way back by double decker bus to Taksim. Sitting in the front seat on the top deck, I had a panoramic view of the road stretching out before us. We made our way over the colorfully lit Bosphorus Bridge (as Rufus Wainwright said, a gay bridge which was followed by a collective indignant sigh of Turkish pundits). I could see the lightning still striking behind Sultanahamet, flashing the outline of the iconic skyline every few seconds.

I like this city in the rain. There is something so communal about it. Each mode of transportation forces you to interact to the point that you can’t help but feel responsible to a greater community.

I’m not sure about Fries but Istanbul is, indeed, very successful in stormy weather…