My Last Day in Istanbul

I returned to Istanbul and had one final day before my flight back to the States. How would I spend it? Well, I saved one tourist attraction for the final day. It was kind of a present to myself, something big in Istanbul to give me something to look forward to. This was the Church of St. Chora. None of the exchange students had talked about it too much but it took up two full pages in my Istanbul guidebook (the same amount as the Hagia Sophia), so this meant it had to be big! Unfrotunately, I would never find out. It turns out that the attraction is closed on Wednesdays, which was what my last day in Istanbul happened to be. Oops.

Anyways, after that didn't work out for me, I basically walked around it and took pictures of the outside. I also got some pictures of a section of the nearby city walls I had not seen.






I then went to Taksim Square to do a bunch of souvenir shopping. I had neglected throughout most of my time to buy people things as I went, so my goal was to find things for everyone at one time (including myself). I was able to buy quite a few things to take back for people. I also met up with Alex and Crystal and we went to a baklava place.

Now I don't actually like baklava but I wish I had known about this place before the last day I was here. It had the best baklava I have ever eaten! It was amazing. It was called Karakoy Gullogllu if anyone reading this ever gets a chance to go to Turkey and eat baklava. You must go here!






It was a good time and it would be the last time I would see either of them for a while. I was one of the last exchange students to leave. Most of them had left earlier in the summer. Alex was still around because he was taking summer classes there and Crystal was around because she liked Turkey a lot.

That evening I went back to the apartment and I went out for my last evening with Umut, Elif, and Egemen to our favorite local establishment - the Bu Cafe. Umut and I played backgammon as we had often done before. As I was sitting with them, I told them about my travels and was even speaking some Turkish with them. Elif was impressed with how much I had learned in the previous month (that's how long it had been since I had seen them). I even beat Umut at backgammon. I felt as if things in my time in Turkey were coming full circle. I remembered back to the first time I went out with Umut and we played backgammon and he asked to play for the bill. I laughed to myself as I remembered getting my ass handed to me and foolishly thinking that I was as good as he was even though I hadn't played the game in years. Things were the same and yet they were different. Sitting on that balcony, overlooking the Bosphorus, I thought about all of the times I had in Turkey. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I don't remember much about what we discussed that night, I just remembered having a good time (and making Umut pay for the bill because he lost in backgammon).



That night I went to pay him for the month of July's rent. I had not been there since the end of June but my stuff had been. I gave him the 350TL. He said to me, but you didn't stay here at all. I said I know but my stuff was here and I agreed to pay you. He gave me 100TL back and said, "It wouldn't be fair for me to take this from you. Keep it." I smiled and thanked him. Umut was such a good guy...probably one of the best people I will ever meet in my life. From the beginning until the end of my time there, he had been nothing but kind and helpful. He helped me deal with the airlines in Turkish, he lent me his clothes, he told me where to buy new clothes, he took me out when I didn't have anyone else to spend time with, he helped me learn Turkish, he didn't take advantage of me (like so many other Turks did to their foreign roommates who didn't know the prices). He is just an all around great guy and I hope I will stay in touch with him for the rest of my life and that one day I can help him the way he helped me.

I woke up very early the next morning to take a cab to the airport (with all of my things it was much easier than taking the public transit). It was early so the roads were not busy. I woke Umut up to tell him goodbye, loaded my stuff in the taxi and was off. As I rode to the airport, I began to talk to the taxicab driver. We talked about where I was from, why I was in Turkey, talked about his kids, whether he liked being a taxi driver, etc. It was fairly mundane conversation that one could have in a taxi. The point was that I was actually able to have these conversations with him! It was amazing to think how far I had come in 6 months. 6 months ago, I was in a taxi and I did not even know where I would be staying. I had lost my bags at the airport and with nothing more than the clothes on my back, I got into the taxi cab and gave him a sheet of paper with an address on it. I had no idea where it was or how to get there or even if he had taken me the shortest way. I was completely at his mercy. Not knowing the culture, I tipped him (not usual) after he overcharged me for the distance he drove. How different it was 6 months ago to now as I rode on the expressway through the Turkish suburbs to the airport.

I arrived in Miami to find that the airlines had lost one of my bags (shocker). I ended up in Florida that night, in my own bed and it was all over.

The plane ride was very sad for me. I knew I was going to miss so many things about Turkey -- the people, the traveling, the food, the walks along the Bosphorus, etc. For the first time in my life in Turkey, I wasn't looking forward. I was living in the present. Every time in my life I always feel myself looking to the future. When I finish high school, I am going to go to college and it will be so much better. When I finish college, I will go to law school, which will be so much better. It goes on and on. However, when I was in Turkey, I never thought to myself, "when I finish my time in Turkey, I will go back to the US and do X." I was living in the present. I hope that I can have that feeling again, for I fear otherwise that I will spend my whole life wishing it away and then one day I will wake up and realize it is over. That thought scares me, which is one of the many reasons why I fell so deeply in love with Turkey and it's people and it's culture. I hope one day to return. To this day I still miss it. I can't help but think how lucky I was to have the experience I had and meet the people I met. There were so many times where bad things could have and should have happened to me (see the trip in Eastern Turkey). There were times where people were nicer to me than I probably ever would have been to them if the situation were reversed. I also got to see so much history and culture and met so many great people while I was there. I was so lucky to be able to go to Turkey and to have this experience. As I sit here in the US, I can only hope one day that I will get to return.