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Arrival in Istanbul
Luckily the train was late, so I got a little extra sleep in before they came and took the pillow and sheets away. The train goes all the way through town and loops right up along the water around the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, and the rest of the tourist crowd. I took my time getting out of the station. I couldn't seem to find a baggage place, so I decided to just carry my stuff all day and hop on another night train around ten. I ignored a couple people offering me taxis and hotels, and I just started walking in the direction of Sultan Ahmet. It was already growing hot when I came upon a street and then a park that I knew. I walked right past all of the tourist stuff that I saw three years ago. Down the hill on the other side towards the hostels. Sure enough, one place had an internet cafe, so I hid inside for a while.
Turkey
I failed to study any Turkish whatsoever during the last two and a half months that I have carried the textbook and dictionary. Slowly things started to come back to me though. Even after
learning Turkish for almost two months in 1995, I could barely string together a few sentences. More important was the memory of a few key words. Food items came back to me. I ordered one of the few meatless Turkish dishes for lunch: kasarli pide. It is kinda like cheese pizza bread. The restaurant threw in some free cay, and I was feeling at home already.
Tourists
There are tons of great things to see in Istanbul, so the place is just overrun with tourists from all over. This means there are some problems too. I added to the trouble by putting my backpack on the ground in a park, lying on top of it and reading a book. Sure enough, I dozed off after a bit and the police came along to wake me up. They also made sure to keep people off the grass and whatnot.
One other problem that comes with tourists is scam artists. Evidently the guys that sell coins for the ferries like to have a little fun now and then. They find tourists looking to get to the train station (me) or somewhere else on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. Then they tell the poor tourist to get on the wrong boat. They probably jack up the price of the token a bit too, just to make it fun. After falling for this, I had quite a walk along the water in order to get to the train station for eastern Turkey.
The Dark Tower
Incidentally, I was thinking about the novel that I am reading lately. It is a Stephen King series about the final gunslinger trying to save a doomsday earth (or something parallel to that). It is kinda a return to the days of every-man for himself, like in the American Western movies. My law professor once told us that that is the result of a lawless society. There can be no legal right to goods aside from possession. Thus, everyone has to look out for his or her own. I am not saying that Turkey is like that, but there is something wrong when a person has to wear all his valuable in his pants. For all of our civilization in the world, we still have to use a lot of guns, walls, money belts, and whatnot in order to keep what is ours.
Late Train
Anyway, after an evening of sitting on the east bank of the Bogazici and thinking silly thoughts like these, I finally boarded the train to Ankara. I was surprised to find that the train was more modern than anything else around. I remembered a big leather seat that didn't really recline a lot, but the cabin was dark and it was easy to sleep. Three years later, on the same Istanbul-Ankara route, there are these fancy, bright, air-conditioned expresses with cloth seats and fancy sliding doors. Honestly, though, I think I slept better on the old train.
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