NOTE: I really truly do understand English capitalization! Don't blame me for the end of this posting! Blame the computer god!


The area that I've adopted closest to my heart is the İstiklâl Caddesi, a pedestrian street in the old foreign quarter (Beyoğlu). Pedestrian is here used loosely, and allows for street cleaning vehicles, motorcycles, and police vehicles, as well as the old tramway. The street is cobbled, swept across by two sets of tram rails. On either side extend up thin, moderately high buildings, some modern but most in one of the old Parisian styles up to Art Nouveau. Here can be found shops of most of the major varieties, including clothing shops labeled as 'expensive' by our receptionist but on the low end of the Canadian spectrum. One example – an outlet of the chain United Colors of Benetton, into which we saw three women in chadors enter. İstiklâl Caddesi stretches across Beyoğlu from the top of the hill rising from the Golden Horn until Taksim Square, where I heard what I would consider a superior remix of a Pink Floyd song. Back-streets thrust off it into the mass of the old foreign quarter, including one street famous for its mussels, either stuffed or deep fried, and another which incongruously sported a gay bar called 'Sugar Club' (on the subject of which, I also saw two men holding hands on the İstiklâl Caddesi on my first day in Istanbul, which surprised me while predictably warming the cockles of my liberal heart). There is a pastry shop called Özsüt, decadent and expensive, and another called Patisserie Markiz with an Art Nouveau interior, along with surely many others I never had the chance to enjoy. The whole street is very much, very lovably alive.

Spongebob imagery is unusually common here, and after noticing I commenced a campaign of observing pop imagery. Japanese images are fairly regular (for example there exists a brand of popsicles with a cute anime girl as mascot), although far less so than in Vancouver, while Winx Club is far more popular. Every image of those oddly distorted fairy girls brings to mind a certain friend, a fan and a deviant, a female of mutable nature but rarely mute (you know who you are).

The stray cats of Turkey, as I intended to mention before, are unusually small. Fully grown in Selçuk they were the size of kittens, though this is not so much the case in Istanbul. They run the gauntlet from mangy and hungry to fairly healthy-looking.

On the subject of ornamentation, many women dye their hair blond here. Females run the full spectrum from tank-tops-and-shorts to billowing black shadows. Social groups seen promenading are a pleasing mixture of piety levels, which socially seems to me a positive indicator. There are an inordinate number of shops selling lingerie. My personal woe is what the water does to my hair, abetted by the heat and humidity, making it somewhat gross and almost waxy.

MUSTAFA KEMAL ATATÜRK, WHO DROVE THE ALLIES FROM TURKEY AFTER THE FIRST WORLD WAR, IS AN EXTREMELY POPULAR FIGURE. THIS COMES AS NO SURPRISE, CONSIDERING THAT THE EYEWITNESS GUIDE, SPEAKING OF TURKISH ETIQUETTE, REMINDS THE IGNORANT TOURIST NOT TO INSULT ATATÜRK WHILE POINTING OUT HIS PROMINENCE IN CULTURE. HIS ATTITUDE IS VERY MEIJI TO MY MIND, IN THAT HE DIDN'T SEEM TO MAKE A DISTINCTION BETWEEN “MODERN” AND “WESTERN”. ON A SEMI-RELATED NOTE, I IMAGINE THAT IF TURKEY HAD AN OFFICIAL SUPERHERO TEAM THEY WOULD BE CALLED SOMETHING LIKE THE 'TURKISH SECULARISM DEFENSE FORCE', OR MAYBE 'ATATÜRK HYPERTEAM', AND WOULD CONSIST OF THREE OR FOUR MEN AND AN EQUAL NUMBER OF 'WOMEN WHO DON'T WEAR VEILS'.

AND, AS ALWAYS, I'VE BEEN EAVESDROPPING ON WHATEVER JAPANESE I CAN FOR THE SAKE OF PRACTICE. AT THE GRAND BAZAAR AND AT ST. SAVIOUR IN CHORA I HAD CHANCES TO HEAR THE LANGUAGE WITH A TURKISH ACCENT, WHICH WAS FASCINATING STUFF. JUST NOW THE WOMEN AT THE TABLE BESIDE ME ARE SPEAKING JAPANESE, AS I TYPE THIS AT A BREAKFAST OF FETA, WATERMELON, HONEYDEW, TOMATOES, CUCUMBERS, TWO VARIETIES OF OLIVES, MANY MORE OF BREAD, AND SPREADS LIKE BUTTER NEATLY RANGED IN PERFECT SHINY PACKAGES WITH FANCY LOGOS READY TO BE RIPPED AWAY IN A METALLIC TWIST.

ONE LAST NOTE IN THIS INORDINATELY LONG DOUBLE-ENTRY: I'VE BEEN HAVING CIVILIZED CONVERSATIONS. THEY CONSIST OF A POLITE ALTERNATION OF QUESTIONS SUCH AS 'WHERE ARE YOU FROM?', AND 'DO YOU LIKE TURKEY?', AND HALF-HOUR ARGUMENTS OVER WHETHER EVENING STARTS AT 5PM OR 6PM ARE NOTABLY ABSENT. IT WAS REFRESHING AT FIRST, BUT NOW IT'S GETTING REPETITIVE.

NOW, COMRADES, ONWARDS TO MUNICH!

SINCERELY,
PSEUDO VICTORIAN WOMEN

PS. MADAM BIRON, I SHOULD TELL YOU I FINISHED THE LOST WORLD WHILE STILL IN SELÇUK. ROMANTICALLY SPEAKING (AS IN WITH REGARDS TO THE RELATIONSHIP WITH GLADYS) THE LAST CHAPTER WAS VERY SATISFYING, WHILE THE LAST FOUR OR FIVE SENTENCES STILL DRAW MY MIND INEVITABLY TO GAY MARRIAGE.