This morning a cool breeze rattles the
streets of the city and a splatter of raindrops pound my head as I duck out of
my hotel. It is as if the city knows I am leaving her and is protesting my
desertion. As if in apology, I give up on my shopping plans and pace the
streets instead, the same roads I blundered along on my first day here, seemingly lifetimes ago. Istanbul, once a stranger, has become familiar as an old friend.
.
I walk through the bazaar where the
salesmen see my determined pace and let their cries fall on other ears; through
the spice bazaar, where I savour the stenches that will soon be confined to
memories; to the square where the pigeons flap around scattered grain and
decorate the mosque steps with splatters of white and grey.
.
I feel a melancholy growing in my gut as I
push each scene deep into my memory, knowing someday soon they will leave me.
This is what travel is about, I remind myself, each country like taking a new
lover, one that will charm you and seduce you and send you packing with just a
box of photographs and keepsakes that you can revisit from time to time.
.
I walk further still, past the Kurdish vagabond
brandishing air rifles and a wall of glass bottles for 1TL a round. Past the waiter
who looks remarkably like George Clooney and so has taken his name as his own;
past the sun-blushed American girls winding scarves clumsily around their heads
at the mosque door and the burqa-clad mother beside them whose boisterous toddler keeps
reaching to pull the veil from her mouth. I push my feet into the cobbles as if hoping to leave some invisible footprint behind forever.
.
The weather continues its dance - an icy breeze, followed by a warm arch of
sunlight and a smatter of raindrops – the city’s last flirtation. I feel simultaneously ready to leave and desperate to stay but there’s
one thing I’m sure of - Istanbul and I are not quite finished with each yet. This is one love affair I’m
not quite ready to give up on.
.
View from the hilltops at Eyup
.
In the old city
.
Backstreets of the city
.
Shooting air rifles at the roadside
.
One of the city's numerous mosques
