Calling Constantinople

I know, I know, I’ve lost my audience for not feeding this bloggy content monster. Also, sorry for no photos, maybe later.  Since joining the Istanbul/Ankara Exchange, it has been non stop movement. I am with an eclectic group of students and academics in international relations coming from Russia, Mexico City, Pakistan, Italy, Australia, Lebanon, US, Switzerland and Turkey. I am the slacker of the group, the artist who lacks their field’s foundation. Regardless, it is interesting, fun and exhausting.

I was the only foreigner on an all day bus from Istanbul to Ankara. It was a luxury coach, and the bus personnel spoke enough English that I successfully made my transfers. Eventually my seatmate Burcu joined me. She’s part of the Exchange, from Anatolian Istanbul and is a PhD student in Gainesville, FL. I was happy for the company.  We stopped on the road for lunch and she introduced me to Ayran -- a liquid yogurt drink that I now have at most meals. It perfectly balances the Turkish flavors, especially when they spicily scald my tongue.(Our Palestinian hosts also served us a thicker version of it). By the end of the trip I was trying to convince her skip a few days of school and to divert her parent’s upcoming itinerary in the US to include San Francisco. She invited me to stay with her family for a few nights, so I left our group hotel and commuted with her to Üsküdar - an area of the city on the Asian side.. Her family lives in a peaceful, lovely large garden apartment, yet stepping out the front gate plunges you into energetic big city living. It took us an hour to reach Taksim Square, by group taxi and ferry. The city is choked, but not gasping. Traffic is thick but moves viscously, and spending ½ of the commute crossing the gorgeous Bosphorus was divine. I loved momentarily stepping into the rhythm of the locals and I made headway in my quest to get Burcu and her family to our home this fall, I’m hoping…

The last few days have brought short vigorous thundershowers. I was shopping on crowded Istiklal Street -- a pedestrian mall with a charming streetcar running down the middle -- when it began to pour, and purchased a “saran wrap” umbrella for 5 Turkish lira (about $3.25) It had a crooked handle, opened automatically and formed a transparent purple dome around me. The street was full of pastel plastic bubbles bobbing and floating in the rainy night. Turkey has a vibrant consumer economy, and many of the cobble stoned streets restrict vehicles, so evenings after work everyone is out, shopping, dining, being seen…The promenading throng is as thick as Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue at noon.

Istanbul is more magical than I remember.. I would vote it more beautiful than San Francisco -- and it certainly has better summer weather.