Tuesday, May 6, 2008

seviyorum ve nefret ediyorum...




















So I started taking Turkish language classes. Turkish and English sentence structure basically flips, the -um translates to 'I' etc. The above translates into I love and I hate. I love that I am learning Turkish so I can better communicate in and understand the culture which I am living in but it is tough. I love that I when I walk up the gigantic hill from the Marmara sea to my house I see at least ten fig trees getting ready to burst with plump delicious figs. I have visions of harvesting around my Istanbul neighborhood like I used to harvest lilacs and violets in Minnesota. I had the whole neighborhood scoped out different varieties and colors plotted in my head. The figs are coming...
















I love this stained glass work from the train station, Haydarpaşa, on the Asia side of Istanbul.
















I love that riding the ferry across the sea is a form of public transportation in this city and that there are seats outside.




















I hate that I have had so many electrical problems here, my new computer got zapped. Does anyone know a cheap way to ship to the U.S. and why shipping a broken computer might be a problem through customs?

Also I hate trash. The trash build up in Naples is amazing. What if everywhere the garbage men went on strike and we were unable to get rid of the trash, out of site out of mind? It just kept piling up and piling up. Would we change our consumption habits? Would we reuse more? Here in Turkey it seems to be culturally acceptable to litter. All the time throwing things out the windows and off the ferry into the sea. They reuse a good amount but their consumption levels are rising and there aren't recycling systems. The plastic water bottles around the world what do we do? So much water everywhere but none to drink. Also plastic bags, I try to say 'pakette yok'-no bag- because every little item is automatically put into a plastic bag. When I was young my reoccurring nightmare was that tons and tons of stuff was falling on me, suffocating me with stuff and I would wake up crying.(sounds funny but I am serious)

random rant for the day...
What do you love/hate?

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