You never know what you’ll find when you walk out of an apartment in Istanbul. Outside my apartment it’s a pretty safe bet that Dirty, the overgrown puppy that someone in my building leaves food for, will be waiting for a quick scratch behind the ears.
Dirty is a stray and so you can’t fault him for living up to his name; neither can you resist petting him when he fixes his tan eyes on you. Thankfully, most mosques have outdoor sinks for washing up, and there are three mosques on my way to work.
Further down the street, I might run into the day’s catch being delivered to Meyra, a trendy restaurant recently reviewed in the NYTimes’ 36 hours in Istanbul (the picture above is from the associated slide show – and happens to be the top of my street). The fish coat the back floor of a van – no packaging, no ice – and the cook picks from the silvery, twitching mess by hand.
There’s a fruit stand right after Meyra with an owner who greets me with a gracious ‘Gunaydın’ (good morning) every day, even though I never buy from him. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch the moustachioed farmer with a donkey-cart full of vegetables at least once a week.
Next stop is the ATM, which dispenses money in four currencies. This is useful when you are paid in pounds, pay rent in euros, pay the credit card bill in dollars, and need Turkish lira for day-to-day expenses.
Last week, I came out of my apartment to find a tank and half a dozen policemen with automatic weapons. My first thought was: how did they get the tank up the steep streets of Cihangir? I’ve gotten used to the police and their fancy toys – the tanks are topped with water cannons instead of real ones, the automatic weapons often fire tear gas – but wasn’t used to finding them so close to home.
This morning the police were gone, but something else was different. It’s a cloudy day, like many this winter, and no warmer than usual, but the air has the unmistakable tang of spring in it. Here in Istanbul people associate seasonal weather with the seas which surround Turkey: Black Sea winters, bleak and rainy; Aegean springs and falls, with their calm and sweet-smelling breezes; and Mediterranean summers where the sun turns all the colors brilliant. The groundhog may have signalled another six weeks of winter back in the US, but we’re not waiting for the equinox here in Turkey – reason number 13,248 I’m glad I moved here.
Apologies for going radio silent. January is a dark, cold month not worth recording, save for an epic visit from my brother Robert and my friend Cory and the consequent road trip through southwestern Turkey, and a weekend trekking through slush with my favorite Romanian Greek English Parisian… but those are stories for another day.
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