Little Travel Stories: Istanbul, day 2

I arrived around lunchtime on Friday, after a long but uneventful flight. My very kind friends Asli and Alp arranged for someone to collect me from the airport. I walked out of Customs looking for a
mustachioed middle-aged guy holding a sign with my name on it. Imagine my surprise when I saw a handsome young man holding the sign - their son Yunus! (As expected, the driver standing next to him was middle-aged and had a mustache.)

The drive from the airport to their house took us from Europe to Asia, and the changes to the city were obvious. Skyscrapers have popped up here and there, towering over endless blocks of apartment buildings like glass and steel mushrooms. As we approached the Bosphorus Bridge, I could see a forest of communications towers and construction cranes on the Camlica hill in the distance. Camlica used to be a place where people went to stroll in the gardens, drink tea, and watch the sun set over the city. It doesn't look quite so inviting now.

Modern mushrooms

Asli and Alp live in a neighborhood called Umraniye. This area used to be quite remote, skirted by the traffic artery that flows over the second Bosphorus bridge. Over the years development followed the highway and now Umraniye is densely populated. Ikea is here, and a few big malls. The streets around their modern apartment block remind me of Amman - a hodgepodge of new and old buildings, sporadic bursts of sidewalk, broken concrete steps, lots of rebar. Building facades are covered in tangles of wire and rusting security bars. People look relaxed - maybe not exactly happy and prosperous, but not ground down by poverty either.

It is cool and rainy. The sun should return on Monday, but it was nice to fall asleep to the rumble of thunder and rain.

Ferikoy organic market

Every Saturday morning, Asli goes to an organic farmers market on the European side. Thanks to jet lag, I was wide awake at 6:30, so I joined her for a little shopping and breakfast. The pazar is in Ferikoy, an area I used to know well and still found familiar. The pazar is quite large, full of beautiful sights and smells. At 7 AM the pazar was bustling with people - and cats! I could have taken 20 cat pictures, but limited myself to two. Once shopping was done, we sat and had tea and gozleme. Gozleme is a very thin bread cooked in the same manner as a crepe, with various fillings. Ours were filled with salty white cheese and spinach. Delicious!

I loved going to the different neighborhood markets when I lived in Istanbul and Bologna. I'm so happy to see these markets are thriving still. This kind of morning activity is what I miss in DC.

As we made our way home, we saw police gathering on every street corner. Today is the first anniversary of the Gezi Park protests in Taksim Square. Inspired by the imminent destruction of trees in one of the last urban parks in the city, the Gezi Park demonstration evolved into a much broader protest against government policies. Taksim Square has already been closed by police in preparation. Needless to say, we are staying far away from all that, and hoping things don't get out of hand.