Holy Turkey
So we took a trip to Turkey in September...It. Was. Amazing.
Turkey is a beautiful country filled with the most generous people I've met so far in my life. Turkey felt like going home to strangers, we're a family just becase we're people & we're here together right now. It's places like these with people like this that keep me believing that at the end of the day, we're all just people trying to love, be loved & fight the good fight. We're all connected, ya know? Ok, enough waxing poetic, check out these photos!
From the moment you step off the plane , Istanbul is a thrilling whirl of color, light and sound. The city radiates with a vibrant energy that makes you feel transported and completely at home, all at once. The windy roads are littered with signs of life, present and past -street art layered over ancient fortress walls, the golden light from mosques illuminating crowded rooftop bars. There is a wildness, contained, but always pulsing just beneath the surface.
Istanbul has seen an enormous flux of Refugees from Iraq & Syria. As of this writing, the UNHCR has totaled 1,938,999 Persons of concern in Turkey. Istanbul houses approximately 300,000 Refugees with 150,000 of those being children. Learn more here & here.
I now understood as an elemental force of life that while I was here inside my body was a soul, a meaning that all things are made of desire, touch & love and what I was sufferering from was composed of the same elements. - Orhan Pamuk
FOOD
I wish I could show you all the food I ate. But what's the use of that? It's the taste that you really want. I was too busy eating everything in my sight & these were the only few photos I have to show you of the delicious cuisine I had at my finger tips.
The Moon Rises Over Istanbul
Like birds flying through an open window
we are visitors in this place that we will never know
Transience-
sears every breath of this foreign air
And yet, here we are
Inhabiting the tender bones of this country
Learning the lyrics of it's streets
like a blind man reading braille
And memorizing the poetry of the moonlight across our skin
In a language that will live in our mouths forever
but will never be spoken again
-S.T.
