İstanbul [GP:Istanbul], morning.
No entry for a couple of days – haven’t really felt inspired. Things are winding down – the bulk of the group leaves tomorrow morning for New York.
After a little bit of soul searching, I have pushed my departure up a few days as well. I like Istanbul, and I want to come back, but there’s too many buts right now. But I’m out of money. But I’m tired. But I really just want to go home – I’ve been gone for a month and I recognize that I’m just not really appreciating a lot of what I’m seeing. Part of it is the now psychosomatic response to the others in the group – the quirks that wouldn’t annoy me if not for the fact that when you spend 24/7 with people you get to know their most annoying qualities – and after 5 weeks, it sometimes starts to grind on you just a little bit. Cathey needs to go home early, and after some consideration, I thought, oh, what the hell? I could stay here on my own – I’ve done it before, but you know what? I really just don’t want to. I’ve still got some extra time to go back to a couple of places, I have just about all my shopping done, I have time to chill out on Monday and drink coffee in little cafes all day – that’s enough for now. My energy is waning and I just really don’t feel like finding my own way after 5 intensive weeks.
Moving right along. Two days ago – Thursday – we went to a private school – not sure why. Very interesting, but it’s one of the best private schools in Turkey and it looked exactly the same as every well-funded high school anywhere else in the world. Also, it wasn’t very air conditioned so that by the end of the meeting we were all a little damp. Then we went to Bogazici University for lunch and had a campus tour, and that was the end of that day. Thursday night we went to a little rooftop restaurant for Barb’s birthday. I ought to go back with my camera – the view of the city with the moonlight reflecting off of the Bosphorus was unreal.
Yesterday we had a little lesson in how things really work here. We went to Dolmabahçe Palace, the residence built by the sultans in the 19th century in an apparent attempt to style themselves after Europe. The palace was all right – honestly, I think I’m large estate-d out since they do start to blend together after a while, but our favorite part of the tour was Lurch, our tour guide. That wasn’t actually his name, but he looked like Lurch from the Addams Family, and he was about as cuddly, so there you go. Dolmabahçe is under the control of the government, so the tour guides are military folk, and Lurch was your typical military tour guide. This is a room. It is very ornate. Do not step off of the carpet. There will be time for questions later. Let’s move. Now. We zipped through all 15,000 square meters in about an hour and that was it, end of story, thank you for coming, the exit is that way, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. As I said – cuddly.
Afternoon cafe with Rob and Ali. Happy hour with Seçil on a rooftop overlooking the Golden Horn, dinner with Jen, Dana and Kate at a little garden cafe.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the ATM to replenish my dwindling funds. I pushed the little buttons – boop beep boop – and asked to withdraw 100 million lira. The machine gave me 300 million (and a receipt to match). That ought to just last me until I leave. I’m taking it as a sign. Istanbul, we’ll do this again, sometime soon.
Tags: bogazici_university, bosphorus, istanbul, Travel, turkey
