It has been almost two years since my last visit. As soon as we landed I felt the familiar cold again. That formal and mild cold that reflected from the coats of the mid-30's businesswomen or the cold the university student brought into Bus 39 in the evening's setting darkness after her gym workout in her jumpers. That cold at the platform of Ohlsdorf Station or the cold sound of slow escalators at the Lutterothstrasse U-Bahn exit. Escalators in the London Underground always run smoothly and are refurbished once they get a little old, but not here. The cold of the fugitive eyes in the carriage and on the heavy door handles that you have to pull aside to make your way out.
The cold immediately filled my lungs but did not make me feel sick, in fact, the contrary. It would be unfair, to summarise my feelings with cold here, as most of my experiences are warm and homely. I had a relatively warmer welcome from the Passport security. The more Schengen visas I have on my passport, the less they deal with me: Benefit of the unjustice for Rights of Travel. It did not feel like a lot has changed since my last visit. A lot has changed with me but not with this city. Young bikers on the side of the street passing by our bus, the Turkish bus driver helping out an elderly on where he has to leave the bus, evening lights on the shaking leaves of trees, empty beer bottles on the pavement and "übergang zu U2" at Schlump.
S. immediately recognised the change in my hair as H. opened their doors to welcome me once again. They both looked healthy despite H.'s own claims against it. We caught up since our last meeting from over a year ago in Istanbul, and updated each other with whatever was left to say outside our e-mail conversations. H. has been like an "aunt" for me ever since we met, and that's how I got attached with this city... The first time I met with F.A., or when I came down from Denmark to the coldest winter's day in 30 years of history, or spent a weekend with J., or with S.Y. and S.I. watching out for the ticket inspectors on our free rides, or when I met my family after a few months' separation, or when we drove from Berlin with A. to her first visit here. Each and every single memory just flashed back as I was gazing at the pictures on H.'s walls of her family and the other familar faces, including one photo I had taken, she framed of my own family.
After the previous night's long sleep, I had another good 11 hours of rest, pulling my weekly average from 4 hours to 6. Smells of nearby linden trees, sounds of the cheerful schoolkids playing, and the taste of "Wald Honig" fill the early afternoon. A warm shower, a stroll on the street and a ride down to the Hauptbahnhof and I will leave here briefly, to go on with the journey. It feels good to be back... and this time around, I am paying for my tickets on the U/S Bahn regardless of inspections. I guess I have more responsibilities now and there are other excitements other than watching out for the ticket inspectors. Maybe they will get also the escalators fixed with a little help from me... or maybe they should leave it the way it is, so I can feel once again that I missed this city.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Monday, September 01, 2008
even an end has a start
OK, this is a cheesy title to begin with, it is some lyrics from a cool Editors song, but it is not the most creative title. In fact, I have been writing cheesy blog's about how life is downstairs and upstairs and so on. But sometimes life is easy, at the roof terrace it is a bit breezy and sometimes it is just cheesy (just like this rhyme).
Anyhow, this monologue is actually a small farewell introduction. I am leaving my house, my beautiful city, the good weather and the good friends and the good view again, to go to an uncertain. As of tomorrow 4 PM, I will be retiring from my 17 years-long non-stop educational career. I may go back to it one day, but the coming years look like I'll try something different.
After some travelling in September, October will mark a fresh new start in a foreign city with no home, no work, no commitments but increased responsibilities, along with different heartbeats. Ambiguity might be scary, and the shite weather will definitely not be of great help. I adapt well. It doesn't necessarily mean I "belong", but I find a way. Or a way finds me. Or I just leave it to my intuition, or to my feet which always take me somewhere. Somewhere rather cool.
A hint: I am looking towards a harbour across the sea. Tomorrow, I will be at another harbour. And the day after tomorrow, I will actually be at another harbour, all of which I have been to before. Did you know that there are actually more countries in the world by the open-waterside (sea or ocean)?
There will be more motion picture, and then there will be soundtrack. Rail tracks, running tracks, airport runways, trekking routes, wheels on the left, wheels on the right and a paragliding flight. A smooth land and in the end, my feet will finally be on the ground (I told you, I don't necessarily "belong").
Damn, this feels awkward.
Anyhow, this monologue is actually a small farewell introduction. I am leaving my house, my beautiful city, the good weather and the good friends and the good view again, to go to an uncertain. As of tomorrow 4 PM, I will be retiring from my 17 years-long non-stop educational career. I may go back to it one day, but the coming years look like I'll try something different.
After some travelling in September, October will mark a fresh new start in a foreign city with no home, no work, no commitments but increased responsibilities, along with different heartbeats. Ambiguity might be scary, and the shite weather will definitely not be of great help. I adapt well. It doesn't necessarily mean I "belong", but I find a way. Or a way finds me. Or I just leave it to my intuition, or to my feet which always take me somewhere. Somewhere rather cool.
A hint: I am looking towards a harbour across the sea. Tomorrow, I will be at another harbour. And the day after tomorrow, I will actually be at another harbour, all of which I have been to before. Did you know that there are actually more countries in the world by the open-waterside (sea or ocean)?
There will be more motion picture, and then there will be soundtrack. Rail tracks, running tracks, airport runways, trekking routes, wheels on the left, wheels on the right and a paragliding flight. A smooth land and in the end, my feet will finally be on the ground (I told you, I don't necessarily "belong").
Damn, this feels awkward.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Disserting milk-shake
Writing a dissertation can be quite stressful, yet can boost your creativity at the same time. Why not taste a delicious milk-shake with:
200 ml cold Milk.
1 Banana
1 pre-prepared Coffee (w/ Chocolate Flavour)
1 White-chocolate Waffle snack.
Ice
If this looks like your thing, just blend them altogether. The taste is delicious, although it is a bit difficult to "drink".
I am not even going to tell you what my Dissertation is looking like.
200 ml cold Milk.
1 Banana
1 pre-prepared Coffee (w/ Chocolate Flavour)
1 White-chocolate Waffle snack.
Ice
If this looks like your thing, just blend them altogether. The taste is delicious, although it is a bit difficult to "drink".
I am not even going to tell you what my Dissertation is looking like.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Nisantasi-Tesvikiye walking excursion
On a thesis-drained day, I've decided to walk around to get my mind away from things. I did a usual walk in the neighbourhoods of Tesvikiye, Nisantasi and Osmanbey. I have been doing these sort of inspirational, get-away walks since early teen years. This time, for a change, I decided to take pictures and present them here. So you can grasp what I saw when I wrote "gri yuruyus" for example.
Among these is a street that I believe to have made many astral trips to. One day I actually walked into this street, realising I had previously dreamt about it. Most likely scenario is that, I was taken there by my Mother when I was small, and one day in my teen years, I re-visited the place as it is close to where I live and had a false idea. Anyhow, ever since that day, that street has been special for me and many of my unplanned walking routes passed by it. I recognise this street from a bend it takes at the end of it, which is not so special for this area, yet distinctive. It is called Kuyumcu Irfan Sokak.
Irfan Kuyumcu Sokak opens up to the Suleyman Nazif Sokak which is the home for Pangalti Armenian High School, one of the few remaining schools for the few remaining Armenian minorities in Istanbul. Next to the school is a rather funny shoe-store: Nr. 39. The name must come from the door number of the building. Otherwise, I'd doubt all the shoes in this shop to be of size 39.
Suleyman Nazif Sokak opens up to the main street Rumeli Caddesi, one of the long shopping streets of Nisantasi. At the end of Rumeli Caddesi, is the junction with the long and wide Halaskargazi Avenue. An entrace to Osmanbey Underground Station (1 of only 6 underground stops Istanbul currently has) is here. This is the avenue Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was killed tragically. North end of Halaskargazi is Sisli district, the south end is the long Cumhuriyet (Republic) Avenue leading to Taksim Square.
It is Cumhuriyet Avenue I walked home from Taksim for years and years, meeting the regulars of the avenue: Transvestite prostitutes, abandoned cats near the Turkish State Radio (where I check the temperature from its digital display), soldiers guarding the Harbiye Military House asking for cigarettes and whistling away the people standing in front of the military territory, tourists walking into Harbiye Hilton Hotel, the students of Lycée Notre Dame de Sion. Familiar to and walked by only few, it is one of Istanbul's most diverse, controversial, yet enjoyable walks.
I head back via the new, extremely unnecessary and wrong-investment (due to location, accessibility, lack of demand) poshy shopping mall, City's of Nisantasi. After Nisantasi is back to Tesvikiye with the infamous Tesvikiye Mosque, where celebrities are usually mourned and prayed after before their last journey to eternity. You can sit just in front of the mosque entrance gaze at the people pass by into one of the cafés at the end of the day.
Tesvikiye and Nisantasi are among the rich parts of Istanbul, first inhabited by Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities in the 19th century. World-known brand shops, cafés, art centres and high rental rates determine the character of the area. Many of Istanbul's Art Nouveau style buildings are located here (the rest mostly around Beyoglu). The streets are gridded in a very modern approach and in between the high streets are residential areas with small textile and manufacturing shops increasing in numbers towards Sisli area.
Among these is a street that I believe to have made many astral trips to. One day I actually walked into this street, realising I had previously dreamt about it. Most likely scenario is that, I was taken there by my Mother when I was small, and one day in my teen years, I re-visited the place as it is close to where I live and had a false idea. Anyhow, ever since that day, that street has been special for me and many of my unplanned walking routes passed by it. I recognise this street from a bend it takes at the end of it, which is not so special for this area, yet distinctive. It is called Kuyumcu Irfan Sokak.
Irfan Kuyumcu Sokak opens up to the Suleyman Nazif Sokak which is the home for Pangalti Armenian High School, one of the few remaining schools for the few remaining Armenian minorities in Istanbul. Next to the school is a rather funny shoe-store: Nr. 39. The name must come from the door number of the building. Otherwise, I'd doubt all the shoes in this shop to be of size 39.
Suleyman Nazif Sokak opens up to the main street Rumeli Caddesi, one of the long shopping streets of Nisantasi. At the end of Rumeli Caddesi, is the junction with the long and wide Halaskargazi Avenue. An entrace to Osmanbey Underground Station (1 of only 6 underground stops Istanbul currently has) is here. This is the avenue Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was killed tragically. North end of Halaskargazi is Sisli district, the south end is the long Cumhuriyet (Republic) Avenue leading to Taksim Square.
It is Cumhuriyet Avenue I walked home from Taksim for years and years, meeting the regulars of the avenue: Transvestite prostitutes, abandoned cats near the Turkish State Radio (where I check the temperature from its digital display), soldiers guarding the Harbiye Military House asking for cigarettes and whistling away the people standing in front of the military territory, tourists walking into Harbiye Hilton Hotel, the students of Lycée Notre Dame de Sion. Familiar to and walked by only few, it is one of Istanbul's most diverse, controversial, yet enjoyable walks.
I head back via the new, extremely unnecessary and wrong-investment (due to location, accessibility, lack of demand) poshy shopping mall, City's of Nisantasi. After Nisantasi is back to Tesvikiye with the infamous Tesvikiye Mosque, where celebrities are usually mourned and prayed after before their last journey to eternity. You can sit just in front of the mosque entrance gaze at the people pass by into one of the cafés at the end of the day.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Battersea: Pigs have flown long ago
London is a spectacular city. It is quite easy for one to wander around and be amazed by the ever-changing typologies of buildings, neighbourhoods, as well as the vast amount of public parks, green-spaces and innovative structures such as the bridges over the river Thames. On any given moment, you will not be able to understand all the conversations taking place but will have the chance to taste all variety of tastes. You might run into a poshy shopper at one end of the city, or watch an old lady carry grocery bags into 30-storey, run-down residence at another end.
If you bike around, it will take matters of minutes to go through different districts that are on their own so diverse that, you will feel you've travelled through cities. London flanerie experiences have been great inspiration to many of my recent writings and there are some that I have been referencing back and forth at. Here's another one I had once mentioned dreaming of visit some months ago at http://ocavusoglu.blogspot.com/2007/10/welcome-to-london-my-son.html
This is a site going through the project phase of potential regeneration. This site contains one of the most beautiful architectural pieces I have ever seen.
Battersea Power Station was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the same architect who designed Bankside Power Station that was famously transformed into Tate Modern Museum by Herzog & de Meuron and who also designed the famous "red telephone booth". It saw World War II, survived "blitzkrieg" and served electricity to London until 1983.
From whatever side you approach Bankside, you will realise how comfortably and strongly it sits on its location. Last June, I was knocking on the doors of the German Embassy to get a new Schengen visa, making a lot of way into Kensington area of London. In one of these trips, I rode my bike through the red-bricked expensive houses of Chelsea, the crescent rows of beautiful white houses, garden squares, a surprising street-level mews and a more surprising run-down social housing estate. I hit Chelsea Bridge Road, lying down some huge trees, running up a hill into the bizarre Chelsea Bridge, without ever understanding what was awaiting in this rich mix of visual delight. I could have easily crashed into one of the cars on the main road or fell of my bike as I was looking across the Thames which is even wider at Chelsea, putting Battersea at a virtual arms-reach but yet as a decaying temple. Gilbert Scott earns every credit for this temple of modernity, the famous masonry experts of Middle Ages who have built tremendous structures could never get for their anonymous names.
Alternatively, you can take the southern route, following the south bank of the Thames river, across Westminster, Houses of Parliament, through re-generated district of Vauxhall with new residential developments. The southern riverside feels like you are in a totally different country, a sea-side holiday complex with hotel-like houses, especially under decent weather like the day when I visited the site in July. It was opened to public for consultation on re-development (Public viewing as consultation is alone another topic of discussion. I don't if any of this is available in Turkey).
Today, the power station is in a run-down condition and projects to re-develop the power station and the area nearby have failed since 1986 when the station was closed down. Shattered glasses, torn-down walls and decaying status of the building clearly depict the need for work, yet they also create visual spectacles for the lucky visitors.
Today, an Irish development firm is taking big steps to re-generate the site, turning Battersea Power Station into a "shopping mall" and introducing residential development nearby it.
Plans to extend the Northern Line of the London Underground to build a station at Battersea, re-generate the public space around the station and introduction of a ferry-pier look good on paper. Development may mean gentrification, especially in the wake of other river-side developments taking place in nearby areas like Vauxhall, or a successful re-vitalisation of another part of South London. The re-development plan also includes the introduction of a massive residential/recreational are that will be covered with a transparent eco-roof topped with a huge "chimney", resembling that of the Battersea's 4 chimneys, but superseding them by far. This is the most offensive intervention the developers could have come up with, concerns of which can be observed in the faces of the viewers as depicted in the photo below.
It is where the pigs have flown over once. There will be many more pigs, dogs and sheep arriving here on the Underground, but with what is on offer ("The Chimney"), it will be ever more difficult for more pigs to fly over it. Let's hope and try for the best for Battersea. I left the Battersea Power Station site with these thoughts, as a train was approaching the white chimneys of this tired temple.
If you bike around, it will take matters of minutes to go through different districts that are on their own so diverse that, you will feel you've travelled through cities. London flanerie experiences have been great inspiration to many of my recent writings and there are some that I have been referencing back and forth at. Here's another one I had once mentioned dreaming of visit some months ago at http://ocavusoglu.blogspot.com/2007/10/welcome-to-london-my-son.html
This is a site going through the project phase of potential regeneration. This site contains one of the most beautiful architectural pieces I have ever seen.
Battersea Power Station was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the same architect who designed Bankside Power Station that was famously transformed into Tate Modern Museum by Herzog & de Meuron and who also designed the famous "red telephone booth". It saw World War II, survived "blitzkrieg" and served electricity to London until 1983.
From whatever side you approach Bankside, you will realise how comfortably and strongly it sits on its location. Last June, I was knocking on the doors of the German Embassy to get a new Schengen visa, making a lot of way into Kensington area of London. In one of these trips, I rode my bike through the red-bricked expensive houses of Chelsea, the crescent rows of beautiful white houses, garden squares, a surprising street-level mews and a more surprising run-down social housing estate. I hit Chelsea Bridge Road, lying down some huge trees, running up a hill into the bizarre Chelsea Bridge, without ever understanding what was awaiting in this rich mix of visual delight. I could have easily crashed into one of the cars on the main road or fell of my bike as I was looking across the Thames which is even wider at Chelsea, putting Battersea at a virtual arms-reach but yet as a decaying temple. Gilbert Scott earns every credit for this temple of modernity, the famous masonry experts of Middle Ages who have built tremendous structures could never get for their anonymous names.
Alternatively, you can take the southern route, following the south bank of the Thames river, across Westminster, Houses of Parliament, through re-generated district of Vauxhall with new residential developments. The southern riverside feels like you are in a totally different country, a sea-side holiday complex with hotel-like houses, especially under decent weather like the day when I visited the site in July. It was opened to public for consultation on re-development (Public viewing as consultation is alone another topic of discussion. I don't if any of this is available in Turkey).
Today, the power station is in a run-down condition and projects to re-develop the power station and the area nearby have failed since 1986 when the station was closed down. Shattered glasses, torn-down walls and decaying status of the building clearly depict the need for work, yet they also create visual spectacles for the lucky visitors.
Today, an Irish development firm is taking big steps to re-generate the site, turning Battersea Power Station into a "shopping mall" and introducing residential development nearby it.
Plans to extend the Northern Line of the London Underground to build a station at Battersea, re-generate the public space around the station and introduction of a ferry-pier look good on paper. Development may mean gentrification, especially in the wake of other river-side developments taking place in nearby areas like Vauxhall, or a successful re-vitalisation of another part of South London. The re-development plan also includes the introduction of a massive residential/recreational are that will be covered with a transparent eco-roof topped with a huge "chimney", resembling that of the Battersea's 4 chimneys, but superseding them by far. This is the most offensive intervention the developers could have come up with, concerns of which can be observed in the faces of the viewers as depicted in the photo below.
It is where the pigs have flown over once. There will be many more pigs, dogs and sheep arriving here on the Underground, but with what is on offer ("The Chimney"), it will be ever more difficult for more pigs to fly over it. Let's hope and try for the best for Battersea. I left the Battersea Power Station site with these thoughts, as a train was approaching the white chimneys of this tired temple.
Life these days...
...is a race run in 9.69 seconds under a heat of 35° Celsius. It consists of 10,000 words of a 555 hectares project with 5 Million m² floor-space, studied in a 20 m² study-space with around a dozen close friends in a city with around a dozen million fellow inhabitants.
Takes some meetings, quite a lot of readings, pdf's, articles and magazines. Plans for vacation, constant distraction , some innovation and a lot of motivation. Or just a bloody deadline.
It is a whole month's process, some fooling around and slow but continuous progress. Needs 500 milligrams of caffeine a day, two pints beer, +3 dB preamp, 60 Kbps download speed. 3 meals a day, 6 hours of sleep, 50 push-ups, 50 pull-ups, shower twice, get the work done and wait for the price.
Can be captured with a 24 frame/second moving-image or a 1/25 shutter speed still-image...
Greetings to all those who share the joy and the misery.
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