Originally Published in Time Out Istanbul magazine, 2004
It’s true what they say: absence makes the heart grow fonder. I needed to leave Istanbul to know that I wanted to stay.
By Aubree Galvin Caunter
A friend once told me that foreigners feel one of two ways about Istanbul: they either love it or they hate it. Indeed, Istanbul is not a city that inspires indifference.
Funny then that when I got off the plane and took that first hour-long traffic-jammed drive to our new home in Etiler, I knew that I would be able to call this city of 15 million ‘home’.
Don’t get me wrong: I was not an instant convert. It took several weeks before I was able to ride in a taxi on my own (despite eight months of Turkish training). I was baffled by the shelf-stable milk (what do you mean it doesn’t spoil?). And it was some months before I could bargain at the weekly markets (why spend so much time reducing the price of vacuum bags by only 1 million TL?).
But, slowly the daily grind of living in a foreign country started to give way to habit, and eventually, comfort.
For example: the fact that one simple errand takes all day, which used to drive me crazy – like the holiday trip to purchase of gift-wrap, which I can tell you is cheapest on a little cobblestone street behind the Spice Bazaar – is now a smell-the-roses, take-your-time-and-enjoy-it, Zen-like experience.
And, yes, the traffic on the Barbaros was frightening at first, with what should be three lanes of vehicles – if road lines are to be believed – all sharing up to five half-sized lanes. But, now I am one of the drivers shouldering my way through those fourth and fifth pseudo-lanes. I have even gotten used to the surprise appearance at my driver’s side window of the flower sellers and cell-phone accessory peddlers who walk between cars during rush-hour.
Cooking, too, was an interesting foray into the unknown, since vegetables here are only available in-season, a concept that eluded me for my first two months. “Where is the broccoli?” I wondered to myself, as I scoured the vegetable aisle in September. Now, I am taking advantage of the freshest foods and learning to cook with new spices.
But tackling these small hurdles of life in a foreign country, although invigorating, proved exhausting. So, when I booked my tickets to the U.S. for a short visit last month, it never occurred to me that, when it came time to finally get on the plane, I would not want to board.
To my surprise, I cried at the airport at the reality of leaving. “I will be away for only two weeks,” I said to soothe myself. “Istanbul will be the same, right? Probably no new customs will be invented while I’m gone.”
And for a time, it was good. I saw old friends and family. I ate all my favorite foods at my favorite restaurants. I bought clothes and shoes and toiletries. I watched television and caught up with my shows.
And then, it hit me. I woke up one morning craving my Istanbul breakfast of Turkish yogurt, honey and fruit. My mother, concerned with my atypical lack of enthusiasm for breakfast meat – sausage, bacon, pork roll – questioned me, but all I wanted to do was talk to my husband in Turkey.
I needed confirmation that my yogurt would still be there when I got back. That Istanbul, as I had left it, had not ceased to exist. That I had not, upon my first arrival six months prior, stumbled upon a mythical city in a parallel universe that disappeared the moment the wheels of my Lufthansa Airbus touched off. I missed our apartment, kebap restaurants and bazaar shopping. I missed our new friends: Turkish, English, German and Australian.
I had to wait seven hours for the answer – it was only 1 a.m. in Istanbul when I was having my breakfast-cum-panic attack in Baltimore – but my husband assured me, via a crackling trans-Atlantic call, that the city was indeed still there.
Thankful, I was able to enjoy the final days of my vacation, albeit with visions of Danone yogurt dancing in my head.
So, what makes Istanbul so special? Some of the things are easy: the view of Sultanahmet lights twinkling at night; the friendliness of the Turkish people, who try so hard to understand my pidgin Turkish; the juxtaposition of Euro-Asian cultures that gives the city its other-worldliness and out-of-time bravado.
But it’s the smaller things, those that are not easily explained to outsiders, that most define the meaning of this new home: my neighbor waving at me with a ‘Gun Aydin’ as she walks her tiny dog; the simitci calling, his voice echoing from the stucco buildings; the seagulls soaring high over the Second Bridge.
My old friends and former career are 4,000 miles away on another continent bordering a distant sea. And yet, here I am: at home. It is nothing like the city where I was raised, but the hills of Istanbul, arching into the sunset, presiding over the Bosphorus, are easily adopted. This is not a hard city to love.
