Bosporus to the Black Sea

It was independence day in Turkey and everything was covered in flags. I didnt know this and at first thought that everyone was just nationalists; which allows me to clarify that this country wasnt what I had expected. Actually thats not quite true. I had expected Istanbul to be like this but I suppose a bit shabbier and a little less cosmopolitan, and a lot less tolerant. I took a boat from Europe to Asia. With a strong arm I might have been able to throw a stone, from one continent to the other. Istanbul is a garden city, walking through the streets like in rome, one can smell wysteria everywhere. Tremendous. From a boat on the Bosphprus, the city looks more than pleasent, a megalopolis, of buildings and parks, the old spliced with the new.

The Boat was a public ferry and the six hour journey took us to the mouth of the Black Sea. Istanbul never stops, it continues on both the European and the Asian sides from the Sea of Marmaras to the Black Sea, although the density and quality housing declines, from Stone to metal and metal to wood to the constructions that are the most primitive shelter. The Banks of the Asian sides near the main city are covered in summer palaces. The four floor mansions in the sun, with their boats look purr-fect and expensive one even had an infinity pool.

The Bosphorus is shallow, in some places just 36 m deep. Some people think that the opening and closing of this straight is the inspiration of the Noah's flood, the Great Deluge. The Boat stopped at a village called Anadolu Kavağı and hunkered down on a hill above the village are the ruins of Yorrus Castle. The ruins were an old Roman,Byzantine, and crusader castle, but parts of it looked Anti-Deluvian. It over looked the black sea, which was called the Black sea by the Greeks because it was inhospitable; it looks daunting now. The Byzantine and the Ottomans used to pull a metal chain across the Bosphorus here, preventing ships from attacking Istanbul. 


Later when I looked at pictures and thought about the narrow strip of water that divides Europe and Asia, which for so for so long under the rule of Imperial Rome my Shakespeare came to me. Europe and Asia used to be so close under the dominion of the Empire.


"Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colllosos and us Petty man,
We look around his his huge legs and peep about, to find ourselves dishonourable graves"

Its a sad fact that we have grown apart.

There was a man blowing glass on the side of the hill, its a skilled job, I know. When I was a child my parents took me to a glass blowing factory but this man was pumping out glass bubbles as if they were party balloons. He was selling them for about a two pounds, which seemed to cheap to even meet the labour and materials, Id have brought one but I know I break everything. 

On the walk back to the village I saw some Tukeys. I know, unbelievable. I almost wet myself, this was the kind of stuff that really tickles me. Turkeys in Turkey, I took about 30 photos for later viewing, but had to delete the worst few because I had filled up my memorary card. You can imagine, I was distraught.

Some of the best things abroad are the unexplainable, in this village, a fishing village in the middle of nowhere, there was a shop selling Pinochio dolls. Just Pinochio dolls. Like the dolls, the shop too was for sale, so I imagine trade probably wasn't roaring, but only in a village of widower doll makers would it be. Or outside a house on the Asian side of the Bosporus there was a house whose inhabitants were identical mannequins, not statues but actual shop mannequins. I can offer no explanation.

In the Village me and the Americans brought a fish menu meal. My stomach was in turmoil, my intestines in revolution, whatever I had eaten the previous day must have been revolting. In this village, though, the fish was fresh and in-front of you and only 7 Turkeys, I was too weak not top be tempted. Calamari, Bread, Salad, Macrel, Muscles, Sardines, it was a feast and gave the Black Sea expedition a Mediterranean flavour. 

We came back to Istanbul and met some Canadians. Americans get criticised for rudeness abroad but I think a lot is just enthusiasm and naivety. The Americans I had met told me that Canadians were smug purely because they weren't American. I didnt believe them until we met this pair. Jezzee it was like talking to the personification of "I told you so". They were so smug, not for being Canadian but for not being American. Which is ridiculous, its like the Scots supporting Portugal in the world cup, a nationality based on a reaction to someone elses. As we left I told them they sounded American, It shouldn't have done, but I bet it ground their gears.