Istanbul: City of my Dreams

Last night I was thinking what my next post is going to be about. The last two years I have noticed so many thoughts built up in me but I can't really express them or write them somewhere. When I was  10 years old I used to write a diary about my schools days, the crushes that I had, or friends whom  I liked or disliked. I continued writing it till I went to study in US as an exchange student. After I came to Istanbul I did a mistake by leaving it at home in Baku. My mother found it and read some of my little secrets that I hid from her. One of them which really made her upset was that I spent a New Years Eve at my friend's house. Instead of sitting at home we went to the seaside with some of her friends. I agree it was stupid to do, but I was just 17 at that time. On one of my trips to Baku I decided to throw that diary away. 

In this blog I don't plan to write anything secret, it is basically just not to die from boredom in Baku and also just to share my feelings. I don't even know if someone will read this or not. Maybe my writing skills are so boring that everyone will start to yawn and leave this place asap. Let's see what it will turn out to be. 

So my second post is going to be about the City of my Dreams Istanbul. I have been living in Istanbul since 2004. My first years were very stressful and full of problems. It caused me a lot of sadness to overcome all that on my own. I remember moving to Istanbul all alone and looking for a place to stay, my university didn't even care to help me with the dormitories. I had moments when I really didn't know what to do, I knew no one and some of the problems seemed unsolvable at that time. I actually hated this city. So hectic, full of traffic, very dirty, people who are rude and trying to rip you off all the time. Time passed, I found an OK dormitory (there are no good ones in Istanbul, unless you study in the private uni), met people, made friends, started enjoying this city and discovering so many things that Istanbul offers. Concerts, museums, exhibitions, little hidden cafés, bars, and different people. I mean in Istanbul there is a variety of people, it is very well mixed. You can see a punk, a woman in a burka, a transvestite all walking down one street.  

Since my unfortunate event on September 6th, 2011 in Istanbul Atatürk Airport and also thanks to lovely bureaucrats  (I'm sending a warm hello to everyone at the Ministry of Labor in TR)  I had to abandon my life in Istanbul. I consider this city my second home, if not the first one. Everything that I owned in the past 7 years was in that city, all my dreams and memories were there. So I had to leave my tiny room in Fulya, my flatmate, all my belongings and come to Baku. That was a shock for me and caused so many tears. But time flies so fast and in a little more than 1 month I'll be able to go to Istanbul again. At first I couldn't even watch Turkish channels on TV, because the moment I saw Istanbul or heard someone speak Turkish I got so upset. Now I think was it the city that I miss or my life there? Probably it is the mixture of both. I miss my freedom! I miss the self service checkouts in Migros, the public transportation, walking from beginning of Istiklal till tunel, hanging out  in Asmalı Mescit, the view of Bosphorus and so much more... At the end I would like to share a cheerful song by They Might be Giants about Istanbul. Enjoy!