Nesting

I arrived in Istanbul just over a month ago on a flight from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The last time I was at Atatürk airport was in 2002 when I was about to fly home to England after my summer travels around Europe and Turkey. On that occasion I was violently ill after eating a dodgy köfte (meatball) on a rooftop cafe with an amazing view of the Blue Mosque at sunset. For 2 days I wandered the streets of Sultanahmet in a daze and mapping out all the possible toilet locations. At the airport with an American guy I had been working in Kuşadası with, I fretted as to how I was going to make it on the 5 hour flight to London. Moments before being called to board the flight, I had made an unsuccessful attempt at one of the bathrooms and fell short a good way. The look of disgust, horror and contempt on the poor cleaner's face as I sheepishly scurried away to catch my flight could not be shaken from my mind for some time.

This time I was feeling good having made sure not to eat anything remotely dodgy as my last supper in Central Asia and ready to reclaim some good memories of Istanbul. I was here to find a job and settle down for 10 months or so, soak up the city and save up enough cash to fund another trip next year. The only downside to this grand plan was that my girlfriend, Anna, and I were carrying two giant backpacks plus messenger bags filled with our worldly goods from our life in Kyrgyzstan. They were heavy. Very heavy. The thought of carting them around while we searched for a place to stay did not lighten our load. Fortunately, a friend in Kyrgyzstan put us in touch with a friend of hers in Istanbul who could help us out. This friend of a friend offered her couch and a place to store our belongings for as long as it took to find an apartment and jobs. Big thanks again, Maggie!

I found a job with English First - I had previously worked for this company in China, easily enough, though the job wouldn't start until the end of September. This meant another 2 months of summer vacation. The pain. Finding an apartment, however, proved a little more problematic. We didn't want to pay agencies fees (super expensive), but many of the websites were in Turkish. Craigslist proved to be our salvation. It had been our intention of finding something cheap to begin with, a room in someone's house maybe. The added bonus of instant contacts something to keep in mind. However, most of the rooms proved to be just as expensive at renting out an entire flat, so we gave up that idea. We did end up meeting some cool people on our search so it wasn't a wasted effort. Back on craigslist we searched for cheap flats and were surprised to find a four-floored town house. Thinking there must have been a mistake, we enquired with the owner who told us that there was no mistake. We raced around to the house to find a three bedroom haven with an amazing terrace view of the Golden Horn! We informed him then and there he could stop searching for tenants. We move in this week.

My new address:

Işık Çıkmazı Sokak

No: 26

Yahya Kahya Mahallesi

Kasımpaşa

Beyoğlu

İstanbul

34440

Turkey

Here are some pictures of the new house: