OMG!

My brother and Nevin live in a suburb of İstanbul.  My dear brother gently lets me know that he is going to deliver my luggage to Ayşegül's (his daughter/my niece) apartment sometime in the afternoon before he leaves for the hospital. I will stay with her for the next few days which is going to be a great treat for me. I will be in a luxury apartment in a fashionable part of the city. OMG…It is so cool.

Ayşegül and I decide to take the express bus from Bahçeşehir to the Taksim Square after breakfast. Public transport is the way to go around in İstanbul. We get to our destination in 35 minutes. I have been hearing from friends that traffic is worse than before in İstanbul. I convinced myself that it is just a rumor, an exaggeration by the people who are not familiar with İstanbul which never had a good traffic in the first place.  We hop off the bus feeling good.

I follow Ayşegül who immediately waves down a taxi to take us to her apartment. We settle down comfortably in the cab but my confidence in the İstanbul traffic starts to wane quickly because we have not moved for the 20 minutes or so.  I suggest that we should get off the taxi and just walk.  Ayşegül does not think it is a good idea. So we sit quietly. I can feel the driver is getting impatient with the traffic and he says he is sorry that he took us. But he says he tries not to be choosy when he picks up his fares! Then he goes "Everyone deserves a fair chance after all". Ayşegül chimes in with agreement that's how it should be.  I feel threatened but keep quiet.  We are moving very slowly.  Ayşegül asks the driver make a right turn, all of a sudden traffic opens up as if  it was never congested. İstanbul!

I am not familiar wıth the area but I have a general idea where we are. We stop in front of a recently built skyscraper. Ayşegül opens the doors with her magic card and off we are to the 13th floor. Her apartment is beautiful, wıth a million dollar view of Bosphorous.  In meantime, I work the phones and Aygün is coming to pick me up to meet Nesrin who is also a very good friend and married to my other cousin in a couple of hours in Ortaköy.

I surf the web and check in with one of my favorite sites, Pomegranate Vintage to see what is new there. It is only 2 o'clock ın the afternoon when we meet Nesrın. It feels good to be friends. We walk by the street vendors who are hawking. Aygun responds "yok, yok teşekkürler" (no, thank you) One of them shouts back that he appreciates her saying thank you. These guys are funny but he probably genuinely appreciates it.

We are at a coffee house/ bar with Xmas tree in its midst in Ortaköy by the Bosphorus. Tankers are cruising up and down. Kisses, hugs and without losing any time, we start chatting, pouring our hearts out to each other for the next 3 hours with the waiter pouring tea or coffee in our cups.  We order pastries and fruit tarts but never stop chatting.