A Dreary Day in Sariyer

I went to bed last night with grand ambitions:

I was going to wake up at sunrise and figure out a way to Zekiriyakoy, the suburbs north of Istanbul where I lived for three years, from 5th grade through 7th. Once I got there, I was going to mingle with the students of the British International School of Istanbul, where I first honed my scholarly ways, and leap naked into the pool of my childhood home, where I honed my first killer tan. I was going to walk my old neighborhood's familiar streets until my legs grew tired, then stop at the old desert shop to indulge in some celebratory rice pudding.

As dusk fell, I was going to hop a bus to my family's favorite destination while we lived in Istanbul, the humble fishing village of Sariyer, and grab a tasty kebab, my senses awash in the smells of the Bosphorus and the nostalgia of my youth. Once the day had come to a glorious end, I was going to conquer the Bosphorus at night and float back to Istanbul a returning king.

Finally, I was going to suckle some fine wine with my hostelmates, before retiring to my quarters, where I would sleep the sleep of an Ottoman sultan, belly, heart, and mind each more satiated than the last, after a successful pilgrimage to my own private Mecca

Okay, so that's what didn't happen. What did, you ask?

First of all, I didn't get up at sunrise, but I did get up by the end of today's Ramadan fast, so that's good. More heartbreakingly, I didn't ever get to Zekiriyakoy, but I did spend enough time on buses looking for it that I probably could have gotten to Syria had I been headed in that direction.

On the upside, I did get to have a conversation with many helpful people trying to assist me in reaching my destination; and by conversation, I mean that I said "Zekirayakoy" over and over, each time more emphatically than the last, while they stared at me vacantly. And as I sat on my first bus of the day, to Bachekoy which ending up being essentially a dead end, I did get to experience the pleasure of being stared at by this face for an hour and a half:

I finally got to Sariyer- not my primary destination, but close enough- at 6:00 PM, and stepped out of the bus to find a nondescript road full of buses and a gray sky hanging above it that was almost Icelandic in it's ability to inspire misery in all that beheld it.

Oh Sariyer, how you dissapoint me. I expected the sights and smells of the quaint yet bustling fishing village of my distant memory. Instead, I got a slightly more mundane, grimier side of Istanbul, divorced from the magic and grandeur of Istanbul proper. Try as I might, even my photographer's eye for beauty in the ugliest places couldn't salvage the grim scene:

But the city, she still loves me. As I drove back into the city proper, silently patting myself on the back for my ninja-like ability to sneak onto Istanbul city buses undetected and without paying a dime, I saw the clouds lift and felt my mood do the same. Almost like magic, an obscenely ugly day gave way to another striking Istanbul night.

As if to show that there were no hard feelings between us, I stepped into a clothing shop obviously directed at tourists and asked to purchase a ten lira souvenir T-shirt with the city's name displayed boldly in Arabic-styled letters. That's right, the exact same kind of shirt I made fun of Byado for buying just one blog post ago; you wanna fight about it?

I felt a little dirty walking out of that store. Even now, I can't see myself wearing my new souvenir anytime soon, my conscience still too heavy with shame. But someday, in honor of Istanbul, I'll wear it with pride.

Maybe.