Istanbul September 6-7, 2007

It’s been just one week since my return from Istanbul but it seems like months have past.

This time my travel log marks the map of my mental journey rather than of my actual one because I didn’t have that many moments of solitude to write and the only stolen time were the mornings spent at Starbucks waiting for my travel companions to wake up.

September 6^th 2007

Once again I’m abroad. Once again time is to stop for the few days of my trip and will flow the way it used to when I go home. So far this trip seems like the biggest mistake I’ve done lately. To say everything is horrible would be merciful. The start was as stressful as it was possible and it just kept on getting worse. I know it’s just me; it has always been me but it is just now that I’ve grown to be honest before me and admit it; I’m ready to take the blame entirely. I can’t go over that Munich concert that I missed and my sorrow overshadows every good emotion I would have otherwise felt. And now I’m in that way overcrowded city with about 10 other people that I came here with and I feel like shit. I shouldn’t have come at all. I couldn’t have known that I’ll find myself in a period of moaning that now I see I’ll be in for a long time ahead.

I have no idea if it can count as an improvement but I do blame no one but me for the miserable way I feel.

And never under no circumstances travel by coach! Or if you really have no other choice take a sleeping pillow-it would save a lot of pain both physical and mental.

I feel strangely reconciled. Strangely because it’s new to me. I take everything that happens to me to be deserved.

September 7^th 2007

Funny…it just occurred to me that the idea of getting mad about anything or at anyone for a reason or no reason at all is absolutely excluded from my mind as a bad memory I’ve managed to get rid off for good. Such set of mind has its disadvantages but anyway what’s even better is that I don’t take the compromises I make as sacrifices i.e. acceptance is not equalized with sacrifice. I hope that’ll be of help to endure the long process of inhabiting it until it becomes natural. Anger is shameful for oneself for it is not the last option but the easiest one. Winning an argument by means of anger is actually a loss. Well, I’m happy to say that coming to Istanbul seems like a mistake no more. Hooray! I’m having a really good time! And it would’ve been even better if I wasn’t afraid to go wherever I’d want alone so I have to stick close to the people I’m with. Turkish people are nice-very friendly and polite, too polite sometimes that it makes me to suspect some hidden agenda behind their smiles. I know it’s just my ignorance and prejudices speaking; still I the most remote place I dare to go to un accompanied is the Starbucks coffee shop situated on a busy street some 500 m from my hostel. The hostel is not that bad although bathrooms and toilets are shared and it provides only the basic living conditions-a bed and a window to a small street that comes to life at the indecently early hour of 7 AM and forces me to wake up whether I’m ready or not. The window turned out to be an extra because there are rooms with none; the feeling is less bizarre than intimidating.

Traffic in Istanbul is sheer madness. Accidents seem to be avoided by the power of a miracle. It looks chaotic but there must be an order in it that is impossible to be observed within the 2 days I’ve spent here.

Now that I think about the big picture I have to admit I feel lucky to have come here. I haven’t seen even a 1/10 of Istanbul but I’ve seen enough already and I’ve tasted even more. Turkish deserts are a temptation that I succumb to at any opportunity available. Calories?! Who gives a fuck about that!? Not me for sure :) I’ve taken the idea of tasting the city quite literally :))) 2 days without Internet and I couldn’t care less!

Some

images to make it up for everything I was too lazy to write about: