The Big Move.

Dear Friends, Family, and Interested Observers,

I have made it to Istanbul safe and sound and somewhat worse for the wear. I am still exhausted from lugging around my three enormously heavy suitcases, my computer, my scanner, and my backpack yesterday. I plan on taking a nap after I write this.

I left Ankara yesterday morning at 10:00 am. Betül Hanım, my landlord, returned my deposit after inspecting the apartment. I had spent the previous four days cleaning and packing. My roommate Sinan, completely in character, did absolutely nothing to help me. In retrospect, I should have insisted that he chip in on the deposit initially to avoid his laissez faire attitude in the end. However, he did settle his accounts with me, and I retain a soft spot for the hopeless loafer. To the left, you can see Sinan straightening a couch cover. To my knowledge, over the entire seven-month period we lived together, this is his sole attempt at cleaning.

Of course, I had other goodbyes to make as well. Two weeks ago I spent a pleasant evening with my friend Ender Akat and his family. I worked with Ender ten years ago at the now defunct Yükseliş Koleji, which has been reincarnated (mercifully) as TOBB Ekonomi ve Teknoloji University. Ender and his wife Emine work as public school teachers in Ankara. We had some interesting conversations about old times and new travels. Ender moonlights as an international and domestic tour guide, and he shared some pithy observations about the inanities of Turkish officialdom and political nepotism. I’m glad that we reconnected and look forward to seeing the “E-family” again. Ender and Emine named their daughter Ezgi and their son Ege. Isn’t that cute?

Monday afternoon, I met with my students from the Model United Nations Club at TOBB University. Selçuk, Dinç, and Somer were fun to converse with, and I am sure they will be big successes in life. I think Somer, the student to the right, looks a lot like my brother Bill.

Wednesday morning I went to my last Ottoman diplomatics class at Bilkent University. Professor Özer Ergenç and his students always made me feel welcomed and involved, and I learned a lot from the courses. What a unique opportunity it was … and it was free to audit! I’ll probably see Özer Bey at the Ottoman Prime Ministry Archives later this spring.

Wednesday afternoon I returned to TOBB to say my goodbyes to Ali Fuat Bey. Ali Fuat was also very generous with his time and knowledge, despite an oppressive workload and travel schedule. He has just come back from Damascus, Syria and will soon be heading for conferences in Ukraine and Mongolia. I hope at some point he will be able to leave some of his administrative responsibilities behind and devote more time to teaching and research. He also gave me this precious crystal paper weight as a memento of Yükseliş and TOBB.

The beginning of the journey from Ankara to Istanbul was crazy. When I arrived by taxi to the Ankara bus terminal, I was immediately put in the charge of a porter and his cart. The porter loaded me up, pushed the cart to the other side of the terminal building, and down hill outside the station. For a split second, I thought he was going to keep rolling down the hill and run off with the lot. However, he flagged down the next Istanbul-bound bus and boarded me.

The bus ride was pleasant enough. I had forgotten how beautiful the mountain precipices are leading out of Ankara. I was disappointed that in foggy and snowy Bolu, a small city midway between Ankara and Istanbul, we were not able to take the newly completed tollway tunnel. The tunnel links the two ends of the Istanbul-Ankara tollway and was time consuming and expensive feat of engineering. Instead, we wobbled up the old mountain pass road to our lunchbreak complex. When I got in line at the cafeteria to pay for my food, I found myself in line behind a large group of middle-aged American tourists, all paying for their lunches with big bills. I had nothing less than a fifty-lira bill myself. I got my change eventually.

After Bolu, we descended into the rift valley plane leading into Istanbul. Spring had sprung here, and the fruit trees were in full bloom. My bus must have originate in eastern Anatolia, because the thickly accented Turkish was interspersed with the distinctive Indo-European phraseology of Kurdish. A baby yelped for “Mama!” and a man asserted “Noh!” in a frantic cell phone exchange.

I rented a minibus (!) at the bus station to transport my bulky bags, and we picked up my realtor Gamze in route to the steep, narrow, and winding cobbled streets of Gümüşsuyu (“Silver-Water”), my new neighborhood in Istanbul. The thin, crowded apartment blocks of Gümüşsuyu are pasted on the steep hillside between Taksim Square and the Bosphorus near the 19th-century Dolmabahçe Palace.

The location is ideal. Uphill are the clubs and cafes of Taksim and İstiklâl Caddesi. Downhill is a ferryboat wharf and the last stop of the tramway that connects to the “old city” via the Galata Bridge over the Haliç (the Golden Horn). The tram will connect me to such practical locations as the Prime Ministry Archives, the bus station, and the airport. In between is my relatively quiet and secluded residential neighborhood.

The apartment itself is, let’s just say, cozy. However, all the requisite parts are here for comfortable living such as a fridge, a washing machine, etc. My room is spacious enough, and the salon is huge. There are also some fringe benefits I did not expect. The windowed facade of the salon has partial of the Bosphorus, including one of the intercontinental suspension bridges. It also has a nice view below into the neighbor’s garden. And ... da-da-daa ... my new roommate Ercüment had the foresight to set up a wireless internet connection immediately before my arrival. In fact, modus operandi here seems to be cleanliness, order, and prompt attention to detail – so un-Sinan!

I’m not sure of my new postal address yet, but it’s not like any of you have ever sent me a piece of snail mail anyways. I’ll be heading back to the States next Wednesday, and I will not update the blog until after my adventure with Jim in Antalya. So … I’ll probably next make an entry in mid-April.

Until then … saygımlarla …

jkbinturkey