I’m not a very frequent forum poster (having a paltry 173 posts to my name) and I have never written a blog before so I can hardly have been missed over these past 2 or 3 weeks while I’ve been trying to readjust to the big change that is coming my way.
The simple fact is that, after 7 years of living and working in Istanbul, I’m about to go back to Sydney. But there’s really nothing “simple” about relocating is there?
I love Sydney and I’ve been making practical preparations for some time now and so, in that sense, I guess it is fairly “simple”. What’s really taken me by surprise is how my feelings about leaving are finally catching up with me and how they are anything but simple. For example, I was in Canada recently for work and got really weepy when I realised that this was the last time returning to Istanbul will be going “home”. From now on I can only return as a visitor or a tourist.
So now, rather than say any more in broad and general terms, I’ll just do what we Virgos are famous for and make a list. Two lists in fact: one short one and one much, much longer…
Some Things I Won’t Miss
The traffic
Cigarette smoke in restaurants.
Being stared at
“Youtube” being repeatedly blocked for reasons which I totally disagree with
Being asked “Are you German?” (I’ve got nothing at all against Germans but there are other varieties of foreigner that I could be, so why always German?)
Lumps, bumps and obstacles on pavements and huge pot holes (not cordoned off and with no warning notice)
Noisy, airless buses crammed to bursting point with sweaty bodies on the hottest days of summer because, let’s face it, 50 people = 100 armpits
Some Things I Will Miss
Friends who I’ll probably never see again unless I visit them in Istanbul or they visit me in Sydney
The people I see every day at work – the Turks and the fellow-foreigners, the teachers, the students, the cleaners, the tea men, …
The pale pink sunrise over the Bosphorus on my way to work.
The gentlest, kindest, cleanest dentist in the world, who runs the whole show himself (including answering the phone, opening the door, sterilising the equipment etc), in whose chair I’ve dozed off many a time as he fixes my teeth with game shows and soap operas blaring away on the TV behind him.
The large grubby white dog who sleeps in our street, who loves having his head stroked and who always manages a tail wag (whether I feed him or not).
The Kurdish tailor who gives me rosehip tea, listens patiently and raises half an eyebrow at my childish drawings of what I’d like him to make for me.
The street cats.
The old lady in the apartment above me who tiptoes around before sunrise trying not to wake me up as she does her first namaz (prayer) of the day.
The flower market next to the so-called “New” Mosque (completed in 1663!)
The old lady who wheels her shopping trolley full of cooked pasta, dried cat food and water all around the area leaving food and water outside the mosque, under the trees – wherever she knows there are hungry cats
The slightly chewy ice cream - especially the pistachio one and the black mulberry one
Sitting in the middle seat on a dolmus (fixed-route shared taxi) as people behind pass me money with a message for the driver and the driver passes me back the change with instructions to give it to the ‘one who paid for two people out of a 10- lira note’ etc. How those drivers can manage to weave in and out of the traffic at the same time as taking money, listening to what passengers are saying, keeping track of who’s paid and who hasn’t, giving change, speaking on their mobile phones, smoking a cigarette and balancing a glass of hot tea on the dashboard I’ve no idea. I’m sure the EU will have something to say about health and safety regulations before long. Quite right too, I suppose. Until then it remains a part of the Istanbul experience.
This list could go on, but I’ll stop it there and just say-
Bye byeTurkey, and thank you.
And thank you for reading.
SeaWhitegotlost
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