In keeping with my desire to make the most of my study abroad experience, I had decided that I was not going to let classes get in the way of enjoying Istanbul. Now that the weather had warmed up and the rain had stopped, it was much easier and more fun to go exploring and discovering. One place I was particularly interested in was the Belgrade Forest. The Belgrade Forest is the point of origin for all of the water in the famous Basilica Cistern. The Ottomans actually dug a canal from the forest all the way to the Cistern in Sultanahmet.
The forest is one of the only places around Istanbul where the ancient landscape is still preserved. According to the websites I read, the forest consists mostly of oak and birch trees. The reason I really wanted to visit was because my guidebook had a picture of an ancient "bent" (dam) built by the Ottomans that I wanted to see for myself. Actually, the reason I previously wanted to visit Eastern Turkey was because of the pictures I saw in the guidebook. I guess many adventures in Turkey were sparked by pretty pictures. Well, whatever the reason was, I decided to check it out.
I took the bus to Sariyer and then changed buses to go to a smaller town that is right outside the forest. After about 45 minutes on the bus, I arrived at the town and some locals pointed the way for me to enter the forest. The path in was a paved road with trees on the overhang. I started walking wondering how long it would take for me to get to the main part. The walk took at least 45 minutes, but the scenery was really nice. Once inside, I had the opportunity to buy overpriced potato chips and drinks...and opportunity that I would not take advantage of until later after I had become desperately hungry from not eating lunch. I think 5TL for a bag of chips is just absurd!
So I took my water and I began to walk a ways. I found a nice shaded stump on a path in the forest and decided I would stop there first. I had brought my readings from my Political Economy class (the one with over 1200 pages of reading and ridiculous reading quizzes) to get some work done. I sat and read for an hour or so before getting tired of reading and decided to explore some more. I got up and walked a ways towards a clearing. I was looking for a lake. I met these two Turkish guys and spoke to them for a few minutes and they took my email address. They seemed nice. I also stopped at the little restaurant and had something to eat because I was famished. The food was good...your traditional Turkish kebab with rice and cooked tomato. They told me what direction to go to find the lake and I backtracked and walked around it.
After a bit more walking, I finally got to the bent (the same one as all the pictures in the book). The dam created a really pretty lake with the forest surrounding it. I walked around about halfway to a bench on the lake and stayed there and read for a couple more hours. I ended up speaking to another Turkish couple who were celebrating their anniversary and I took pictures of them. They were really nice and the guy spoke English. The place I picked was really relaxing. The trees around it created a nice shade (and nice landscape too). Looking over the lake was beautiful, as it was surrounded by forest. It was a very calm and relaxing place.
As the sun began to set, I decided I needed to start walking back before it got too dark for me to find my way back and before the buses stopped running. I got up from my spot and walked around the lake back to the main area where cars parked. Then, I started to walk back down the entrance path to the bus stop outside the forest. On the way down the path, I saw the Turkish couple I had spoken to earlier. They were having a barbecue in a clearing in the forest. They had all sorts of fresh lamb and fresh chicken and were using a grill to make dinner. They invited me to join them.
Talking to this couple was really interesting. I learned that while the man was Turkish, the woman was not. She was actually Russian. They had met on the internet and fallen in love. She moved to Turkey to marry him. The most interesting part was that she had never spoken a word of Turkish before she met her future husband. In fact, when they communicated online, they both spoke English because they both knew it a little bit and that's how they got to know each other. Since they have been together, she started learning Turkish, and he started learning Russian. At this point of my time in Turkey, I had thought a lot about what it means to speak a language and to learn a new language and to communicate in a language that is not your first language. The most interesting part about this couple is that in learning each other's languages, they had developed a language of their own. They understood each other, but no one else could understand them. They spoke in a mix of English, Russian, and Turkish to suit their needs. The hodgepodge made sense to them but no one else. It was really quite fascinating.
We talked about other stuff but I don't remember what. It was so amazing that these people invited me to join their barbecue (the food was delicious and I was hungry). After the sun set, I helped them clean up and take things to their car. They offered me a ride and drove me back to my apartment in Hisarustu.
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