Arrival for Departure

The Pekins arrived from Portland today. My sister and I went to pick them up from the Ataturk Airport. They were already done with the customs by the time we crossed the First Bridge (which is the local name of the Bosphorus Bridge). The traffic jam was caused by the anticipated participation of the PM at the opening ceremony of the Baglarbasi Cultural Center, which is literally five blocks away. However, the E-5 was clear - didn't take us more than 20 minutes to the airport once we were on the European side.

It was so good to see them after almost four years. They looked unchanged, I think I am the one who looks really different now. They were also exhausted, since crossing 10 time zones and losing a night somewhere over the Atlantic. Elif had some stuff that needed to be dropped at her office, so we went to Santralistanbul first.

I will confess that despite my interest in all things historic, urban, and cultural, I had never been inside the Energy Museum on Santralistanbul campus. The Museum is located at the Silahtaraga Power Plant, which was the first modern power plant in Turkey, producing electricity from 1910 till 1987. It has a fabulous atmosphere that looked ready to shoot a crappy science fiction movie or to take pictures of the tired couple tied to the machinery and to demand ransom from their parents...

After taking a stroll through the campus and hearing about the development of the nearby neighbourhoods, we drove home. The sun was setting, so the view from atop the Bridge was great. Which must have been refreshing to Kari, since her first two hours in Istanbul were spent driving in and out of Alibeykoy through the back streets.

Ismail and Kari were sufficiently tired to cope with the smothering love and reception of Turkish families. We had dinner on the terrace and the weather was nice. Green beans, zucchini and kofte were delicious, thanks to my mother's superb skills in the kitchen. After an enjoyable meal, everyone went in search of some rest, which will be needed and tested on tomorrow's bus ride to Marmaris....

Sailing to Byzantium

Nothing better than a dose of Yeats to commence the blog:

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees-
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.