From Istanbul to Christchurch

From Istanbul to Christchurch

American roads are wide, and this seems to only preconceived notion I had that was correct about the outside world.

I’ve always wanted to travel, and perhaps I can be forgiven, based upon my age and means growing up, for not following through before now. Caribbean trips and Montreal Model UN (yes, I was very cool in college) in the past few years taught me the wrong lessons about what I would find in Ireland and Turkey’s capital cities.  I expected a smaller America in Dublin, and instead I found that the most American of shops and people stood out in awkward contrast against the domestic culture. I’m not even sure what I expected to find in Istanbul, a place where you could probably find everything.

Istanbul from a ferry on the Bosphorous

Both cities are incredibly modern and yet invested in preserving their history. The people that live in Istanbul sit on street corners texting on iPhones and in the newest designer jeans while smoking hookah. While the gradient of their streets are San Franciscan, and the Palm Trees and red clay roofs recall something slightly more SoCal to mind, everything else about the place screams New York City. As it’s larger than NYC, that definitely doesn’t do the frenetic streets justice.

Downtown Istanbul, near the Hagia Sophia

Dublin’s main shopping streets could be found in any affluent European city, maybe in the West Village (is it obvious what US city I’m most comfortable with?) There’s a Disney store across from the “authentic Irish pubs,” and then, down a side street, there’s an authentic Irish pub with carvery, stew, and an amazing, affordable beer list. Next door, the bookstore holds first edition copies of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and Yeat’s collections of poetry. Forget ever buying one –- books like these cost upwards of €500, so I just enjoyed awkwardly thumbing through the pages and trying not to drop anything.

Dublin Downtown

Both cities have cobbled roads, but it evokes the same nostalgia that you get in restored old Boston, or, again, in Greenwich Village. This might be my naïve shortsightedness of course, since in Istanbul, road construction on a main artery was driving the entire city crazy, but these cities have embraced post-modernism with an aplomb that is sometimes missing in the states, and was certainly the last thing I expected to see in either.

While Dublin, because of size and language, soon began to feel comfortable, 22 hours in Istanbul didn’t take the edge off its foreignness, even as certain streets, residents and cars all reminded me of home. I don’t expect it ever could, with its size, and with the language barrier that would be hard to overcome. Of course, with my helplessness in Istanbul came a silver lining – I could stop trying to blend in or “pass” and just embrace being a tourist, fascinated by everything new.

by Caitlin Cummings