Istanbul diaries

Another year. I woke up with one plan today: to rest. To build up energy for the next week. I come from a culture and a perspective where New Year's Day is regarded as something holy, something to respect. And by respect I mean just don't do anything. I did some research on Turkey and New Year's Eve, and I enjoyed the results. Internet told me that January 1st would be a quiet day, shops closed, people heading out of cities to visit family, everything would be calmer.

So I woke up with no plans, no schedules, and thought: Go to town! There wont be any tourists or crowds, just walk around and see the city and sites and the places. I've been here before and I've seen how crowded places can get. Istiklal is a river of people, and it flows two ways: up and down. I am constantly manouvering between shoulders and handbags going in both directions. It is very stressing, but my introvert nature keeps me from reacting. I just keep fluttering between these people who have no consideration for us poor, sensitive people that need a couple of inches that we call Private Sphere. The Turks do not understand this concept: There are too many consonants in the beginning of the words. 

On the ferry over the Bosphorous I decided that this was the day to visit my old neighbourhood. In 2013 I stayed six weeks in a hostel close to Taksim Square. I thought it would be nice to meet the owner again, and his trusted brother and assistant - Sleeping Ahmed. I really liked this hostel, and the neighbourhood. I had delicious breakfasts at a cafeteria on the corner. The main shopping street, Istiklal, was just a block away. You can find all the boring plethora of western civilization here. Armani and McDonalds, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't care to recollect. If adventurous, you could head the other way, and explore the ghetto. Some of the ugliest women I have ever seen sold their pussies there. You could also buy shitty drugs. 

I found the door, the entrance, and everything. But it wasn't there. The hostel was gone. My favourite pub around the corner was gone, too, or rather: remodeled into some other kind of bar. My breakfast place had also gone. I couldn't even find the building it used to be in. I actually started feeling lost, but then I remembered this principle called "time". It doesn't show up in maps: rather, it is the fourth dimention that changes maps.

And I became sad. My weeks in this hostel were amazing. The diversity of people that flowed through: Peruvian street bands; argentinian lovers and street musicians; russian publishers of buddhist texts; and that pretty alaskan girl that slept in the bunk above me, reading porn every night. The mind boggled. It still does. Jamming with people from all over the world, shaking an egg or giving them the ukulele. Trying to wrap my head around the rhythms of Patagonia. It was a place where you could connect with anyone, and sometimes you did. Like that armenian woman with joints in her pocket and eleven languages at her disposal. I still cant believe it. We hid away in a room upstairs, smoking out the window: she, Sleeping Ahmed and I, with her joints and that ludicrous claim of hers: eleven languages. 

There is no conclusion here.