Some Brief Thoughts on My First Month in Istanbul

Well, wow.

I’ve been in Istanbul for one month now.

It seems unbelievable sometimes. The process of getting here felt long and sometimes insurmountable, but now that I’m here a completely different feeling has taken over. A much more pleasant feeling.

I live in a wonderful apartment. I have a fantastic roommate. I am starting to get work. I’ve had dinner parties and late nights out and lazy tea dates in the sunshine and quiet gray days at the seaside. I have friends.

If you’d told me, the Katrinka who was a nervous wreck about coming here for months, that all these things and more would come to me with relative ease and minimal anxiety, I would have probably laughed nervously, then gone home and cried and contemplated putting off the move for yet another month. As I did. Multiple times.

But here I am… one month in, with good things happening, and more to come.

Here are some of the best things about the last month:

Discovering patience.  I am not a very patient person in just about every part of my life… but somehow, I’ve found strange levels of patience within me in this first month here. Instead of immediately panicking because I had no job and no apartment, I decided to deliberately take things day-by-day. And it’s left me more relaxed, less stressed, and happier. While there are still some times that the old impatient, anxious me can’t help breaking through, for the most part I’ve stuck with it. I keep thinking of an old love who gave me a bouquet of roses flower by flower; I appreciated each rose individually and before long I had a whole vase full of them. That’s what the days here feel like… every day a rose, leading to a huge bouquet.

My beautiful apartment. Here’s a specific example where being patient really paid off. I knew what I wanted before I came here—an airy apartment, with character, preferably with artists and no cats, probably in Cihangir. Patiently waiting until I got here made me realize that I really wanted to live in Kadikoy. Looking at apartments nearly every day was exhausting, but I stuck with it—patiently—until I found one that I actually wanted. Being patient (and a little picky) paid off. I live with a sculptor who is already a fast friend. The apartment is big and colorful and filled with her sculptures and paintings. And instead of a cat, there are two water turtles. This flat already feels like home.

New friends and photo walks. I’ve done two Couchsurfing photo walks since arriving here, and both took me to parts of the city I’ve never seen before. Also, the friends I’ve made through the photo walks and elsewhere are lovely, interesting people. I’m really, really grateful.

Lucy.

Chocolate with pistachios. Definitely superior to most other chocolate/nut combinations. Honorable mention, food-wise, to lahmacun and oily olives and cig kofte and baklava and kebab and… who am I kidding. Everything. All the food is good. Eat everything.