you are as intense as istanbul

It may be the fact that i sit to write after nearly 2 full days of traveling back to Yerevan from Mrs. Istanbul. Freakin' borders. Given its specific geography, there is no way you can forget that it's the "5th largest city proper" in the world. Twelve, seventeen, and twenty million were the populations reported, sometimes gratuitous, sometimes not. So, yesh, the idea of a bloglette at this point to capture the trip makes me chickle not only because it would be days long, but also because i know there are people who have the capacity to gab on... and their readers would just skip through to get to pictures, kudos. Obviously, i need some time to process, but i choose share a tad-ish first.

The city made a window approximately five days long [halfway through], for me to enjoy, to get comfortable, basically long enough for me to be completely mind-blown when things that would make my mother cringe happened. So for the sake of her sanity, i will stick with the pleasant, but let it be known that i now know from experience that i can jump out of a moving car to get away from an aggressive cabi and, thanks to a separate event, that police does Not equal police report [of course, these two things can apply to any city]. No wonder i spent two days at a lovely quiet island beach.


This cat, with joker mouth captures the craziness of the city. He was one of many cats that entertained my camera's lens. i would no doubt already have 5 cats living with me, cat-ladying me up.



Leave it to the locals to give you a place to stay for free, eat one of the best fish dinners for under 5 USD, take you to a cover-chargeless modern jazz show [as the city is teaming with musikaners], and accompany you to the beach because of the fact that they had not been once since living for over 10 years in the magnificence that is. I was granted experiencing as a fat-cat tourist and a subdued cash-strapped locAl [as close as i could get anyway]. The place, as anyone has been knows, is expensive, very expensive. I won't even tell you the amount i had set in my head for spending money, it's just embarrassing.

Cosmopolitan vacationers. Thankful for my brownness - it steers the curious away to avoid confrontation. Is it cowardly and uninspiring? Yes. Did i care at the time? No. Why? Because i just wanted to stare into the sea and relax. Yeah, I was so grateful, i had already said "Mexico," when i heard the man who had just kindly forced tea upon me while ferrying my way to the beach say "Iraq." Acknowledgment: What an interesting conversation that would have been... had things gone well.
Really though, i didn't feel like dealing with awkward, or words for that matter - cue Leslie to speak with a Spanish accent. My few sputtered words had him asking if I spoke any other languages. Russian slowed us both down and kept the conversation to niceties. phew-skis. So now, this Mexican girl is in several vacation videos of this nice Iraqi man, smiling and waving, nothing more.

I was only in Istanbul. I know you think, "But what about the rest of the mammoth nation?" I leave this for when the border opens, to experience with family, a celebratory event, if you will. I plan on walking through the open Armenian border to Eastern Turkey, peace flags in tow.

It's good to be back in 1 - 1.5 million Yerevan, it's closer to SA's size/speed, and at the same time it's sad knowing that more time could not have been spent working on reaching over-saturation. If i had a choice, wouldn't mind eating myself to death in Istanbul.

But these words are just as overplayed as the photos that fill my digital library - it's all been done before - insert tourist here.

Viva!