Kasimpasha

My original intention for this Istanbul Diary was to try to focus more on Istanbul than my personal life. There are enough other on-line journals full of more than anyone would ever want to know about anyone's personal life. However, I've been feeling a bit domestic lately . Although the weather has been sunny a lot of the time, it has gotten a bit cold and gets dark early. This combined with a nice boyfriend has been making me stick around the house more. Roshan's parents are visiting for a couple of months. Last night we had a small birthday party for Roshan. Since all his family are musicians there was a lot of music and dancing. When they weren't playing music, they were speaking in Azerian. I listened for words that sounded similar to words in my limited Turkish vocabulary. That is to say, I was completely lost as far as most of the conversation went. I've started wondering out of all the social situations I've been to in the past few years, what percentage of the conversation I actually understood: One year in Russia, 6 months in Turkey, several months travelling in non-English speaking countries, and 10 months in California where my social life was rather limited and the rest of the time in Seattle where I was too busy with school and work to be very social. One of these days I'll know Turkish, then I can learn Azerian and then I'll move to some other place where I don't understand anything. I guess it keeps me on my toes. Since it has gotten colder, one evening I decided to make my equivalent of a door stop. Actually, I am not sure if that is what they are actually called. (Forget moving to another country. By the time I leave Turkey, I would have forgotten enough English that I could just move back to the States if I don't want to understand anything.) They are the things that you put in front of the crack at the bottom of a door to keep the drafts out. After a few hours of cutting up foam rubber with bad scissors and sewing by hand, Mutsuz Kertenkele (Unhappy Lizard) was born. He was named Mutsuz because he was supposed to spend all his time, alone and cold lying in front of the door blocking drafts. Well, so far he has spent a total of five minutes doing his job. Roshan didn't want him to get dirty. Now he is completely spoiled and spends all his time smoking a water pipe and eating baklava.

Today I ventured down the hill to Kasimpasha. (From now on I am substituting "sh" for the s with a comma underneath instead of just typing a plain "s" like I have been doing.) For most of my walk in this area there was some military area with concrete walls and barbed wire on one side. On the other there were the typical houses and businesses found in most neighborhoods in Istanbul. For one stretch of the road there was another concrete wall. I ended up in front of a small mosque. Behind the mosque was a really huge graveyard that covered the entire hill. A road led up the hill. It seemed like a good place to walk and promised a nice view of the Golden Horn through the haze. I guess with the cool weather people are burning more wood and coal. I smelled the smell of coal burning for the first time since 2 winters ago in Russia. The view was pretty but the graveyard itself was a nicer surprise. One of my few complaints about Istanbul is that it is really hard to escape from the crowds, pollution and noise. Although the crowds and noise make it a very lively place, sometimes I really just want to be able to wander in a quiet place and be able to hear myself think. There are a number of parks here but they are all really crowded. From now on, when I need to escape the crowds, I'll head to the graveyard. The part on the top of the hill has a view and the rest stretches down the hill and is shaded by trees. It even smelled nice and green. The graves are mostly newer ones (not the ones with turbans). Instead of placing flowers on them, gardens have been planted on many. The others have wild plants that have grown over them.

I walked around for a bit then headed back up Tarlabashi. I thought about going to the book fair until I saw the line that wound back upon itself and nearly filled the courtyard in front of the exhibition hall. Oh well, most of the books were probably in Turkish anyway. I walked back up Istiklal, which was packed, and stopped by a bookstore and bought a new Turkish text book.