it is early morning in world house hostel and they have fired up the reggae here. breakfast shortly. outside the open patio doors is the bustle of istanbul, the irregular paving stones, the scraggly cats, the orange- and blood orange-juice stands in the middle of the streets, the bosphorus-bound ships leeching oil and filthy smoke. i am first up among my dorm mates. on my table is a pinkish bottle of water because the tap water has a strange taste here, pinkish from low grade instant pomegrante drink mix they say can be served cold. the cars in the streets are noisy, even this early, and inside here they turn up the music overtop.
our hostel is at one end of istiklal caddesi which is a long street with a tramcar running up and down with a bell that clangs to get the peasants out of its way. many of the people here wear green, bright green. you see green t-shirts, green skirts, green belts, green canvas shoes. at the one end of istiklal is taksim square bus station with too few ins and outs for all the transit that needs to flow through. you can follow the tram tracks all the way to the other end where the road forks, one direction leading down to our hostel, one direction leading down to attatuk bridge that leads across to old istanbul, to the spice bazaar and the aquaducts and cisterns of the old city.
astrid and i share a dorm room with two girls from italy who each uniformly wear black, with black sandals and black handbags and dark shaded glasses. one of them has cleopatra bangs and cleopatra wrists and a cobra earring twisted through one ear, and silver jewelry in her mouth, lip and at the outside points of her collarbones. her hair is black and shiny under the streetlights like the evil eye i found made of opaque black glass and ringed with silver.
our dorm window looks straight into the loudspeaker of the minaret from a mosque next door. last night the prayer call was particularly beautiful, echoing and it seemed to have a kind of sparkle or flange effect on the cry, although i know that was the mood and the wistfulness.
as the day creeps in the traffic picks up and it has now started raining here. i am not sure what today holds. i am not sure what this week holds. this is alright.
