Let me give you some advice: AVOID AUGUST IN ISTANBUL. The city reaches peak heat and humidity and everyone smart flees to the Aegean or Mediterranean beaches. This was the first August I spent in Istanbul, and it will be the last. Living in a constant state of sweaty misery consumed all my thoughts. It’s broken now–thank God!– and September is one of the most perfect months to spend in the city, but still, lesson learned: next August, I’m out of here.
Kabak Beach, Turkey
Best Of The Month
I took my vacation this month and spent a week in Kabak, Turkey’s heaven-on-earth cove on the Mediterranean. I swam, read, climbed waterfalls, and generally took it easy. In retrospect, I should have stayed– summer is much more bearable with that sparkling turquoise sea to swim in.
Istanbul, Turkey
Luckily, I did finally partake in an Istanbul tradition: boating on the Bosphorus! Twenty of us rented a boat for the day and spent it swimming in a cove near the mouth of the Black Sea, eating meze and meat, and drinking in the sunshine. A perfect Istanbul summer day.
Bostanci. Istanbul, Turkey
Worst Of The Month
I nearly embodied the word “meltdown” this month, literally. I think every conversation I had when I returned from Kabak revolved around the humidity and how awful it felt. I finally acquired a standing fan… just in time for the heat to break.
Speaking of the heat breaking– one Sunday morning, my friend Nacho and I decided to bike along the sea path. On the way there, it was glorious: a bit humid, gray, quiet. On the way back, the sky broke open and we found ourselves biking through one of Istanbul’s gushing summer rain storms. I’m not totally sure whether this belongs under “worst of the month,” since being drenched with rain was such a relief. But when it’s raining so hard that the water in your eyes is making it hard to see, that’s probably not a good thing.
And of course, the panic attack.
What I’m Loving
Reads: Okay, I’ve already written about how I read War and Peace on vacation. Before that, though, I read Lord of the Flies for the first time, which was the much weirder choice. The setting of the book is eerily similar to Kabak, which made me feel a bit paranoid.
I also read and recommend this New Yorker article about the construction of Istanbul’s underwater metro and the wealth of archaeological discoveries that were uncovered, including ancient Byzantine shipwrecks. There’s so much history under our feet here that much of the stuff got re-buried– there was nowhere to put it.
Music: Do you ever have songs you return to at a certain time every year? For me, late-August–when summer is fading and the nights suddenly turn cool– always sounds like The Violet Hour by The Clientele. And here I am again, another late August, listening to it again.
Kabak, Turkey.
The Film Files
I had a small problem with my Praktica in Kabak, so I ended up shooting mostly with my Holga. I’m glad I did. It forced me to look at the valley in a different way than I did last year. Plus, having black-and-white film already loaded meant that I ended up strange dreamy retro-looking images that I probably wouldn’t have shot otherwise. This is why I love analogue– it’s all about fortuitous circumstances and things beyond your control.
Yeldegirmeni, Kadikoy, Istanbul.
Ephemera
I wrote a post for Paper Planes about my day-to-day life in Istanbul. If you’re wondering what my life is actually like here, check it out.
That post I wrote about War and Peace struck some kind of nerve and got shared quite widely… which is nuts to me, because I thought I’d gone well down the esoteric and slightly self-indulgent rabbit-hole with that post. So that’s cool!
The Istanbul Modern
Upcoming
I’ll be in the U.S. for a week! I have a family event in Burlington, Vermont over Labor Day Weekend, and I can’t wait to go to one of my favorite places in the U.S. with my amazing family. I’ll also have time in Boston on either end, which always makes me happy. Also I’ll take a trip in Turkey at some point in September….but where? And when? We’ll see!
How was your August?
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