First or, Rather, Second Impressions

Food. My goodness, the food here is glorious. I am writing as a vegetarian turned omnivore as of the moment my plane touched down on Turkish soil. The last time I was in Turkey in 2011 I stubbornly tried to adhere to my strict vegetarian rules, but this time around I am decidedly, well, not. I can already tell that this is a prudent decision.

Turkish cuisine caters to my carbo-loving, cheese-admiring, fresh-produce-obsessed inclinations with little hesitation, but it also has a way of sprinkling a generous helping of meat into many of these dishes, often portraying meat as the star attraction of a given meal. Even so, the now closeted vegetarian inside me did a little victory dance upon tasting my latest discovery: çiğ köfte (pronounced Chee Koorf-teh), or vegetarian "meatballs." This savory street dish is made up of a bulgur, walnuts, cumin, and spicy pepper paste (which is then compressed into "balls" that have more of an obese squid shape than a circular one in my opinion), fresh tomatoes, lettuce, and a few sprigs of cilantro, drizzled with sweet pomegranate molasses, and sometimes wrapped with a thin layer of very thin pita bread or merely eaten as a lettuce wrap. Is your stomach growling yet?

I am also learning, without any difficulty, to appreciate the ability to have freshly squeezed portakal (orange) or nar (pomegranate) juice on almost any busy street corner. As the daughter of a woman who spent many an Autumnal evening meticulously shucking pomegranate seeds for me to pack in my school lunch (thanks Mom!), I look forward to drinking this magical elixir on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

As I sit and write this post, the busy sounds of the Sunday street bazaar in my neighborhood of Tarlabaşı (Tar-lah-bah-shuh) beckon me. Mountains of fruits and veggies, more lactose than you ever knew you needed, as well as discarded electronics and Angry Birds paraphernalia can all be had for criminally cheap prices. The bazaar opens in the morning, mere feet from my front door, and goes until the later hours of the evening. To anybody who says that this neighborhood is in disrepair (it's true that many apartment buildings around us are crumbling and this area is slated to be the site of the next round of government-endorsed gentrification) , I challenge him or her to walk the region's streets on Sunday and make that same claim. This neighborhood is bursting at the seams with life if you know where and when to look.

I feel like I should talk a bit more about my first impressions, since food can be a somewhat superficial way to measure a city's successes and faults. I suppose if I have to pick another element of Istanbul that differentiates it from other places I have lived in and traveled to, it is the tremendous V-O-I-C-E of the city and its inhabitants. The first sounds I hear each morning are the calls to prayer at sunrise each day, with competing and strangely soothing echoes that bounce with equal vigor off of new condos and decrepit ruins alike. It is such a comfort to be lightly stirred from sleep by these cries of worship, to appreciate the diligence of devout Muslims who spend such significant portions of their days praying to their god, and finally to remember that I still have a few more hours before I actually need to awaken.

Of course, the power of Istanbul's voice goes beyond the call to prayer, which rings five times a day. The greatness of its voice extends to the people who call this city home. Istanbul is indeed a diverse city with upwards of 15 million surprisingly diverse residents who do not always get along. I have taken to calling this city "The Reluctant Melting Pot." Turks, Kurds, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Arabs, and plain old foreigners like me mingle together to create an unpredictable collage of cultures.

Every single weekend on Istiklal Caddesi (Ees-steek-loll jah-deh-see) there are at least one or two protests or simple demonstrations. Yesterday the Worker's Party was championing labor rights. Today a Kurdish demonstration was staggered against an enormous Turkish protest against a past conflict with the Armenians (probably not the one you're thinking of). The point I would leave you with is that while these groups do not often see eye-to-eye, they speak up when they are discontented, instead of resigning themselves to the apathy that is so prevalent in America today (Occupiers and Tea Partiers aside). I am all for peaceful demonstrations, even when the speech is disagreeable or downright hateful, because I truly believe that free speech and open dialogues make for more interesting, informed, and empowered societies.