For those of you who have started to wonder why there are no new entries the explanation is quite simple: I have been away from Istanbul (I still am) and, since this blog is entitled “out and about at Istanbul”, I thought it would be inappropriate to write from, and about, elsewhere. But today I decided going away from Istanbul is actually an indispensable part of living at Istanbul. There is no way you can bear the crazy city life if you don’t run away to nature every now and then. Since, as of today, there is three friends from Istanbul that are right where I am, not including me and Seda (love of my life), I guess I have been proven right in my theory.
I am at a place called Sundance Nature Village at the Mediterranean coast. I come here at least three times a year, but I have to admit, April is the best time of the year to be here. To give you an indication of what manner of place it is let me tell you what I did today.
I woke at eight and took a stroll in the meadows that are covered with daisies and poppies in this season. Then I had breakfast with Seda in the garden on a wooden table on the grass, right by the river, where it meets with the sea. Then I went horseback riding for an hour. Then with Seda and Selen (who is both a music scholar and a jazz pianist) I went hiking in the woods for an hour. The hike took us to Phaselis, which is an ancient city, and the ruins of it are quite spectacular. As is usually the case with ancient civilizations it is situated at the most beautiful part of the entire coastline. We went swimming there and had lunch. Then we walked back, this time taking a short cut, which entailed a bit of climbing that took us to a hilltop with an amazing view both of the Sundance bay and the Phaselis bay. When we came back we were surprised to find another friend had just arrived: Mine who is another music scholar. We were tired so we took a nap in the gardens on the grass. While we were having cake and tea we were surprised with the arrival of yet another friend, Gulriz who is an ex-student now working for me. Last but not least I took another one- hour horse ride through the woodland that ended with a gallop on the beach. After shower I started writing this.
Is this a typical day? Well the horse riding is certainly a twice-daily occurrence. Swimming is not as frequent in this season. Admittedly we don’t go to Phaselis every day and thus don’t have this long a hike everyday either. But yes more or less this is how we spend our time here. The woods, the meadows covered in flowers, the sea… I do believe it is heaven on earth.
Posts Tagged ‘spring
I was supposed to write the lgbtt workshop at !f, The rainbow party, the TV studio event for SIYAD (Turkish film critics association). I also wanted to write the night I watched the Oscar ceremony until six in the morning with my two gay friends Gencay and Cenk. However life overwhelmed things happened one after another with no time in between to write. Especially late nights three nights in a row shook my system and left me staggering to regain my balance the whole week.
I was confident I could keep up the job of posting on this blog at least every other day because I am not a very social person. I take care not to pack my days with events and I hate to party till I drop and when I do party it is never more than once a week. Alas things piled up and I got crushed. Now I can’t seem to pick up the thread. I might not have attempted if my dear friend Gulengul hadn’t motivated me by writing a long comment to one of my entries. How should I restart? Should I go back and write the events that I thought I would or should I just skip them and go on. I don’t know. This entry is meant to be a form of flexing my muscles, trying to get back into form.
So let me start by relating what I am doing right now. Obviously I am blogging. Behind me Seda (love of my life) is playing a stupid game on Facebook and simultaneously chatting with Cicek, a dear friend of ours. Gencay who spent the night at our place is reading an article, I wrote ages ago, on Star Wars. We just had breakfast, which consisted of whole grain bread, white cheese (also known as feta cheese), black olive paste, honey, pineapple, green tree and P.J Harvey. Now we are all drinking coffee. We are taking it easy and in half an hour we will go to the organic farmers market for our weekly shopping. We plan to meet Cicek and then Seda and I will go to the gym. The weather outside is sunny and clear: the best kind of spring weather.
Seda just decided we should watch a music video directed by Spike Jones for the song ‘Praise You’ by Fat Boy Slim and it is hilarious. I didn’t know we had this in our house and I really don’t know what prompted her to make us watch it. Now we are about to watch the wonderful music video in which Chrisopher Walken dances like crazy. I adore Cristopher Walken and on this high note leave you to it.
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