Chiara In The Pond

August 14, 2009
hmmmm Here we go. It is time to get ready and pack, although I'm pretty nervous now. Perhaps more than for any other trip.
I pack throwing things around without finding many others while everything seems sooo wrong: it is not just a feeling. Anyways better getting ready gauging the weight carefully! No sheet bag, too heavy, no this pair of trousers! Too blue1 Tape to glue maps to my little book stays, the staples with the same purpose and various soaps taken directly from the hotels in China and Macau stays as well. Check and recheck by phone to have taken everything.

Run to the office, it is almost 9, getting really late.
Sitting and working, time passes slowly while I look to the overflowing blue folder full of trip documents.

Finally it is noon the most 'beautiful' time. Time to start this little adventure in the far away Turkey! Until just a few hours before I wanted to hide under the covers and forget it all! Now I'm ready to shoot.
Outside there is a beautiful warm sun as a good welcome to the trip and I shoot excited a couple of "bring me luck" pictures.

We rush to the airport without problems neverthless the outrageous size of my "handbag"-backpack.

There are many Scots around. They lost 3 to 0 against Norway in I do not know which football game. But they seem happy to console with a few beers and showing pride in their kilts.

Nearby the gate to our flight there are many people getting ready totheir flights: Bangok or somewhere in the States. I try to peek at people's faces to see what brings them over there. Tourism Business What else? Are they happy? Or maybe just bored? I'd like to switch the flight out of the blue and leave for a country even more distant but my trip mate does not seem very keen. Not even in a dream.ok it s finally time for our flight. Although too many mental clouds are going to stay with us.But I want to leave them alone. This is MY trip and I am going to experience so much in Istanbul that it is certainly worth the black clouds.
I have already visited the city an it is certainly waiting for me, lazy irresistible and beautiful. I wonder if it is still as I remember. With those strong colors and the myriads of people fishing on the banks!
The flight proceeds quickly while we sign papers stating we have no swine flue. It's a little scary ... Anyway we are getting closer and closer to the Asian Istanbul.The beginning of the sunset. An unknown sea below us. Countries with not frequently spoken nams. Then the view of the city.... Huge ... Seems to comprehend everything. Gulfs, bays, hills, big ships. Swallow, encompasses everything with his clear colors. So much in contrast with the blue ocean! It seems like a greedy animal, that, sly, clings everything around.
Large ships get closer towards the Dardanelli. Silently.
I can also see what appears to be an aircraft carrier. Altought it vanishes, slowly, in the warm deep waters of Mediterranean.

We land and head towards customs. The queue is very slow. Especially from our side. You can already starting experiencing new feelings: the people around us have little of the West and it is easy to perceive how different we are with our old brownish uncoloured passport.

The control guards are young guys, good-looking. They take their work very seriously and keep being concentrated among the faces peering between passports.
Ask questions and cross-check data on their computers. I step out without problems, if not the time for a good 'enquiry" of my face (while the body temperature was already previously controlled by a machine). I get my visa which I will jealously keep throughout the journey. My trip mate has more issues so I've to prompt the his plane ticket. Luckily I 've kept. He passes too.

Let's take the first bus to the "centre" with a few ideas of what it really means. Th ride is longer than expected. Maybe more 'than an hour.

Alternated barracks and other palaces by uncoordinated colors and positions appears. Many are only partially completed or even look just as sketches, anyway they are almost all inhabited. Even the few mosques around seem to have bee infected by this strange carnival of buildings and people.
I remember Gela. It reminds me of that ghost town in southern Sicily where, according to the urban plan, entire neighborhoods should not exist. And then Puglia where many immigrants returns during summer to build another little piece of their HOME spending entirely the money carefully saved over the last hard work year in Germany or Switzerland.
I can recall the many cars plated A or CH, the people who hug each other after long time neverthless they are not anymore the same. Neverthless it takes time to recognize each other through the almighty help of memories. And then Teutonic new wives looked upon with an evil eye from the women of the village who are preparing in a collective cerimony the tomato sauce. As always, as every summer, as every year.
But we are in Turkey. I do not know how many German wives are here. Although some cars with foreigner plates and full of Turks speed up, fast!

Cars alternate to some old trucks going on pices. There is contrast between wealth and poverty 'for certain automobiles. Families generally travel on means of little value. Pairs of friends or single dart on luxury cars.
The women sit behind almost always, sometimes overwhelmed by children and things. There 's no place for them "in the front".
Meanwhile we stuck in some queue. Later, we will understand,that we were on top of one of the 2 magnificent bridges over the Dardanelles. Unfortunately we can not see that much ....

The sunset is getting over, shadows are replacing it, completley. Buildings, seem growing in height with them.

It also increase the numbers of men near the highway.
There are many men sitting, kneeling, or urinating on the borderline between the highway and the rest of the world. Chatting, giggling and drinking, something. Some are desperately stretched perhaps doubtful about what to do or perhaps stunned by the slow passing of time, always the same.
They do not express particular curiosities' and it's not clear what they're doing in that place inhospitable. I still wonder of who they are and would liked to talk to them.

Ok, we are finally in Istanbul and, with it, in the darkness. Sometimes the bus runs in very narrow road for no apparent reason. Sometimes I think we are lost and that this trip will never end with or without us.

Finally we arrive at Taksim, a downtown neighbourhood in Istanbul. A huge square welcomes us with its noise of cars, stunning lights and people.
A strange banner is located on a building with lots of mannequins el announcement of a Salsa event.

Starved I grab a roasted corn roasted. Our first purchase on Turkish soil!

In the square there is' a show and a small craft market. Although tired, with bags, we're going to scrutinize. There are only Turks around. The neighborhood seems very much alive.
I can also see places to smoke Nargile, water pipe.
With some difficulty we take a bus that brings us very quickly to Sultanhamet, the neighborhood where we intend to stop. At least for the first few days.
The vehicle runs fast. Between streets brightly lit, bustling and colorful. It is like falling down and it seems to "carrambolare" downward.
There we pass undernead 'what looks like a Roman aqueduct, quickly,speedy. Then ruins. Perhaps still Roman, who knows! They seem to have been thrown there.
When you arrive,at the last stop, we have no idea how to get to the hotel. Ok, take a taxi! But even the driver does not seem sure of directions and takes a long U turn.
Anyway here we are: quick sightseeing of the seafront. Now everything is' dark and we can only guess how the other part of Istanbul (the other side of the Dardanelles) looks like as it is glimpsed only through the glitter of far away homes. We arrive in crowded touristic are where Turks seem to be there 'just to work on the premises. The driver struggls a bit 'to find the place (and thank goodness that at least he was there!), But we are finally arrived.
The hotel 'one of 2 or 3 storey building, wood, white, a typical Ottoman house.
The recepionist receives us very kindly and warmly in the small glitteering lobby.

He tells us that his girlfriend is now in Bologna, my birth town, and he hopes to visit her soon.
I try to joke and say that in exchange of information about Istanbul, I ll provide him with some tips on Bologna.
A little embarrassed, the boy politely declines my offer. I know it's 'my first faux pas in a territory different from mine and, blushing, I plan to be more' careful how I speak or act.
The room is small, but really pretty and far away to look as an impersonal cold business room. There is no 'the sight, but all is very welcoming. Except maybe the one written in Arabic above the headboard of the bed and embroidered eyes that seem to look me all the time.

I change quickly, or better, I park the backpack as my trip mate is hungry.

We decided not to stand so much and to stop at a restaurant nearby, though too touristic for my tastes.

While choosing which restaurant to stop in, we see that in some eatery it is possible to see "the dancers of God love", the Dervish. Unfortunately, the idea of seeing them relegated to a restaurant for tourists scares me.
As if a priest celebrates Mass in a club crowded as the attractiveness for foreigners.

And then the music stuns, and 'the migraine is back!

But there is a positive side.
We see the Blue Mosque at night. We hear the "song" of Muzzaidin for the last prayer, his invitation to meet God,again.
It enchants me ...
And then the magic of Agia Sofia .... That church, mosque, meeting point of so many different people, in its decadence and 'more so' majestic. Surrounded by the dark blue sky glittering with the stars and longed last by seagulls that hover around. In silent. Respectful of that monument to faith and change to the Gentiles.

It seems impossible to come from Oslo. And being so 'far from the imperial city' and for so 'long.
After all, the emotions seem almost the same.
Although I grew up.
Or maybe not, maybe I'm still that stubborn experience seeker a little 'crazy and incautious.

We stop at a random restaurant. A little 'trivial, with music to attract tourists and a guy as thrower-in. The food is 'fair, tough nothing special. Only the size of bread is somehow different. It is huge though not particularly tasty.

The nearby shops begin to close. It must be 11 or 12 pm. Who knows!
The place is basically empty but soon a young Italian couple stops ordering quickly. Maybe have yet to reach the hotel. They look tired with their big backpacks. they have probably already seen 'so many things. They are able to order the meal with familiarity. A little 'envy for them and their acquired experience....
Anyways it is late and we are tired.
Go to sleep. I looked forward to see the new sun, tomorrow.

Nostalgic and somehow melanconic dust is on my memories.Memories as a kid. Sometimes memories as a teen ager. The dust I saw last time was in a camping.
It has been a scary experience.It really looked as dust on my childhood.
The rust was on the mechanic parts of the mobile homes. The chalet were getting rotten. Grass was high, full of fast and annoying insects. The high trees around were white larvas and an impossible silent was around broken by the italian no-stopping news from a nearby TV owned by old people waiting the summer to end with its unstoppable hotness.

It was a hard scene. Later, I discovered it was the enchanted world of my childhood. Just forgotten.The same difficulties for having a warm showe while camping, a similar playground for bowls, foosball....
It was just that.... It was getting old. Forgotten! Dusty. Left!! And the people caring were too old to understand that. O maybe there was some other reasons.
But they were so nice!

And I went away.

I went away though I am leaving again for a far away trip.
A trip in the mistery and towards differences of many kinds.
I am going to see people thinking and acting differently from the ones I am used.
I cannot hide I am at the same time excited and a bit worried to be able to act appopriatly.
I like to be silent and observe. But I should be somehow usefull in the world I am stepping into.
I hope to be able to find my way.

My luggage is basically ready. (at least into my mind ehhehe).

To finish adequately this post a "chicca" ("candy" roughly translated):my new findings walking on the streets. And something a bit more on the "destroying side".
Please, wish me well and a good trip.