This never happens...

After passing through the turnstile, while heading towards the escalator, a woman with Metro Security stopped Gregg and I to scan our bags. The hand-held metal/drug/bomb detector read our laptops as trouble, and we were asked to open our backpacks. A glance at the assortment of gym clothes and work papers and she let us go.

Busy with the task of profiling us, the obviously foreign John Does, a black man also walked past. If there is any single group of people who stand out more that WASPs, in Turkey, it's black people. I even catch myself staring at them, just cause there are so few around that I feel a surge of excitement when I see one on the street. It's probably the same feeling that a birdwatcher gets when sighting a rare bird.

Seeing that bag-checks were taking place, he actually asked if he should open his, but was waved on.

Maybe I've been watching too much of The Wire, but I'm seriously shocked that I live in a place so backward, that it fails to harass a black man...

He was even prepared to accept the profiling; ready to get it over with by opening the bag himself.

I wonder if he felt weird about the situation.

Our house...

...is quite literally, in the middle of our street.

So, we live in Ova Apartman (that's right, Ova) on Hanimefendi Street (which means something like, "Yes Ma'am"). The neighboring apartment is Beyefendim, or "yes sir". I've got some pictures of the house and the street below. At some point, I'll try to post a full expo on our district, Şişli.


My ride, and the front door to our apartment.

The dining room.
The kitchen.


The living room (the dining room is behind me, for this shot).

My bedroom, at it's cleanest.

Drop on by anytime!

Istanbul is a jungle...

I've been here long enough that much of the shiny-newness of this city has rubbed off. It might be that I need a break from the extant stupidity I've dealt with over the last several months, but I really think that time, in any place, tends to do that. The colors dull, the novelty rubs off, and then there is the routine of sleep, work, play, repeat...

That's why meeting people, who are new to the city, can be really refreshing. They seem both childishly fascinated with this new place, and woefully naive of its pitfalls.

One such person, a Belgian I shared beers with on Monday, felt Istanbul offered an escape. Europe, as he explained it, was bureaucratic, over-regulated, and repressive. Istanbul offers him freedom, relaxed controls, and something wild.

"Istanbul is like a jungle," he said to me, "but Belgium was a zoo."

I haven't thought, in some time, of dependable infrastructure or safe traffic practices as signs of control... but I've also dealt with the lack thereof for nearly four years.

I appreciated his perspective. It was a reminder. At the same time, as I've aged, and protection from needless injury or unlawful treatment has become an increasing concern, I begun behaving as though Istanbul is indeed, a jungle. I'm no streetwise thug, but I believe this jungle has wrought changes that have made me a tougher, slightly more cunning, and more aggressive and empowered.

I'm not certain that all of these qualities are good things, in and of themselves.

Jungle or zoo, if nothing else, this city is definitely not Jacksonville...