I am now in a city with a population of 18 million, which is more than the population of the entire country of Holland. Istanbul is a city that is everything I expected and nothing I expected all at the same time. One of my course instructors noted that the city operates at a “functional state of entropy and chaos.” This became overwhelmingly apparent on our bus ride from the airport.
The first glimpse of the city was surreal. Intricate floral topiary and designs wove their way up and down the hillside along the sound walls on the freeway. Then the topography dipped, and the city revealed itself. Layered behind the colorful filigree rose stacks and stacks of apartments, in shades of bright pastel. Closer to the freeway loomed gecekondu neighborhood—informal housing settlements built into shells of crumbling buildings, with tarps and clothing lines slung up between the battered concrete. After a considerable amount of honking, I shifted my gaze down to the street, where a boy was rollerskating on the freeway. A crazed smile was plastered to his face as he dodged taxis and buses. I can't say how he got there or where he planned to go. Maybe he was playing a prank and his mother was wringing her hands a few cars behind, but he appeared to be having the time of his life.
We exited the freeway, leaving the rollerskating boy to pursue his suicidal recreational endeavors, and suddenly our coach stopped outside one of the gecekondu settlements. A man jumped up from a table on the curb occupying a small gathering with some sort of game, and boarded our bus, taking a seat next to the driver. The giant coach bus began to navigate the narrow, crowded streets of the city, with Beyoncé blaring through the speakers to provide our soundtrack.
What one would anticipate being a pretty routine trip to-and-from the airport became an adventure when we realized the bus driver seemed to be just as lost in the city as we were. Periodically stopping, the man from the card game who joined us would jump off the bus, speak with a shopkeeper with lots of pointing, then get back on the bus. Strange new places became landmarks, as we circled by the same yellow awning or pharmacy over and over. Teetering on the cobble with a four-foot clearance between buildings on either side, our fearless driver backed up into an intersection. Pedestrians and motorbikes scattered as the forty-foot vehicle pulled a three-point turn. The gopher carried on with this elaborate scavenger hunt to find our apartment for over a half hour, hopping on and off the bus, sometimes stopping for a phone call or a cigarette.
I ended my first day in Istanbul by chipping my tooth on a beer bottle. It was my first beer of the night and there’s no exciting tale, the bottle just accidentally hit my tooth, and it chipped. Maybe the fluoride-less water and weird mint-flavored “tooth-paste” sugar gel from Hema (European version of Target) made my teeth weaker, but either way, it seems like a fitting close to my introduction to this place; a little wild and unexpected.
Alright Istanbul, you crazy city you, I’m ready.
The first glimpse of the city was surreal. Intricate floral topiary and designs wove their way up and down the hillside along the sound walls on the freeway. Then the topography dipped, and the city revealed itself. Layered behind the colorful filigree rose stacks and stacks of apartments, in shades of bright pastel. Closer to the freeway loomed gecekondu neighborhood—informal housing settlements built into shells of crumbling buildings, with tarps and clothing lines slung up between the battered concrete. After a considerable amount of honking, I shifted my gaze down to the street, where a boy was rollerskating on the freeway. A crazed smile was plastered to his face as he dodged taxis and buses. I can't say how he got there or where he planned to go. Maybe he was playing a prank and his mother was wringing her hands a few cars behind, but he appeared to be having the time of his life.
We exited the freeway, leaving the rollerskating boy to pursue his suicidal recreational endeavors, and suddenly our coach stopped outside one of the gecekondu settlements. A man jumped up from a table on the curb occupying a small gathering with some sort of game, and boarded our bus, taking a seat next to the driver. The giant coach bus began to navigate the narrow, crowded streets of the city, with Beyoncé blaring through the speakers to provide our soundtrack.
What one would anticipate being a pretty routine trip to-and-from the airport became an adventure when we realized the bus driver seemed to be just as lost in the city as we were. Periodically stopping, the man from the card game who joined us would jump off the bus, speak with a shopkeeper with lots of pointing, then get back on the bus. Strange new places became landmarks, as we circled by the same yellow awning or pharmacy over and over. Teetering on the cobble with a four-foot clearance between buildings on either side, our fearless driver backed up into an intersection. Pedestrians and motorbikes scattered as the forty-foot vehicle pulled a three-point turn. The gopher carried on with this elaborate scavenger hunt to find our apartment for over a half hour, hopping on and off the bus, sometimes stopping for a phone call or a cigarette.
I ended my first day in Istanbul by chipping my tooth on a beer bottle. It was my first beer of the night and there’s no exciting tale, the bottle just accidentally hit my tooth, and it chipped. Maybe the fluoride-less water and weird mint-flavored “tooth-paste” sugar gel from Hema (European version of Target) made my teeth weaker, but either way, it seems like a fitting close to my introduction to this place; a little wild and unexpected.
Alright Istanbul, you crazy city you, I’m ready.
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