Istanbul – the city of surprises

I will start by saying that I have a belief that every person in this world has their city, a place they feel ancestrally tied to. Maybe it is the birth place, the place they live in, or a place they only visited once. Certainly, each of us has a place that feels different than others in our soul. A place where every part of us screams at the top of its lungs that we are supposed to remain in the place.

Well, I have been to many places in this big world, the only city I could visit without the risk of getting bored any minute is Istanbul. Some may say that it is a busy city, others that it is too colorful, maybe a bit too loud, according to others’ opinion. Apart from what is found on the internet about Istanbul, the true beauty of this city can only be felt there. There is no value in me telling you that there is a huge urban crowd spread across two continents or that it has a population approximately equal to Romania’s… the numbers and exact dates cancel the beauty of a place you feel tied to.

I went to Istanbul for the third time this summer, with a one year break in between the visits. Well, the year in which Ididn’t visit Istanbul, I felt incomplete! If in the first year I was enthusiastic about the multitude of new images in front of my eyes, and in the second year I had the patience to try and smell Istanbul leisurely, this year was when I truly enjoyed everything this city offers. And the beauty of the feelings results from the fact that Istanbul is at your complete disposal. It invites you to discover it, get to know it, taste it, feel it, take it with you in your heart, and to go back there, again and again, to water your memories like flowers and to add new ones in the chalice, to hold them until your next visit in Istanbul. If in the first year I discovered Istanbul like a globe that each time you shake it shows new images, and in the second one I discovered the entrance of this mysterious globe, in the third year I could finally enter it. Well, the world inside Istanbul is completely different from what it looks like from outside. You cannot understand this city from only one visit, it simply does not allow you to see all its hidden wonders. It is a type of labyrinth, in which if you knew all the right directions, you would not even enter in the end. The beauty of the places in Istanbul comes from the pleasure of discovering it step by step, to meet the people living there and going down its paths, to see the hidden areas unseen by some and unknown by others. The labyrinths of the streets take you to wonderful places not necessarily shiny or impressive in size, but chic and full of charm. Each time I discovered another Istanbul, another city, other places, other people. I think the beauty of this city comes from its power to change its characteristics from year to year, leaving the risk of people being bored out, even if it is visited yearly. The bustle, the noise, the multitude of colors are part of it. Every cat crossing your

path or laying lazily on some trash bag or displaying her tail in the window of a chic store make the city what it is. The shouts of the roasted fish vendors next to Eminonu bridge, the rocking and the crowd of people coming all over you make the city what it is. Another part of Istanbul are the quiet streets, with small stores, where you can relax with some tea or coffee offered for free from the vendor you thought you fooled, at a table directly in the street. Still another part of Istanbul is the bazaars, the condiments’ smell, the mountains of Turkish delight and dry fruit, Turk vendors who do not let you go until you try their products, the inevitable question “How are you?” and the invariable response “Vey well.” And if I managed to awaken curiosities about how Istanbul looks in you, how it smells, how it tastes, I promise to come back with words from the fairytale days I lived there…about Gil, the tomcat in Hagia Sophia, the food in small restaurants, but with windows full of goods, about the fantastic pomegranate juice, popular on the streets, about vendors in Grand Bazar, but also the ones outside of it, about cats, about Turkish delight, the bagels, the money going through your fingers, the bargaining, and about their politeness which makes you go home that after the bargain that lasted for minutes in a row, you were the winner!