First time.
What an alluring merger of Past and Future, The West and the Rest. That is how I remember that city, in Capital Letters. Nothing there seems small or temporary. Nothing seems to fit a small print. There I felt as if I were walking inside, not a city, but a thick and mystical history book. And that visit felt like a brief gaze over a brief paragraph. No time to even look at the next page.
When I close my eyes and think of Istanbul, the film that circulate inside my head is made of hundreds people, food of all kinds and colors, and the countless voices. The city felt as vibrant as I had imagined it. And yet. The city suprised me, no doubt. That stamina! That market! The bargaining. The agressiveness of a game that has been played each day for thousands of years.
Tell me, a merchant with piercing black eyes asked me, What can I do so you give me your money?
It was blunt. Wasn´t he being too harsh? But then I figured that there was no difference between his point and my daily encounter with the Western consumer society. Every year, every day, every hour someone is trying to get your money anyway. At least in the Istanbul grand bazaar you are enchanted by the magical atmosphere of a marketplace that is sharp and alive after thousands of years.
There is much more I could write. (How can one not linger on the Food, also to be written in capital letters!) But for now let´s stick to the unapologetic and yet charming transactional life that made a city into something know as Istanbul.
