sultanahmet diaries

ISO: apartment in istanbul

been busy.... went apartment hunting yesterday with my new friend
anna, her boyfriend nick, and hulusi. anna and nick are from tasmania
and are officially the first people i've met from that part of the world.
of course i know other aussies, but tasmania seems like a completely
different place to me. (note: i do realize tasmania is part of australia
and so is technically not a completely different part of the world, but
i digress....). basically, they're from tasmania. i think that's cool.

a note on apartment hunting in istanbul: it's not fun. i never liked
apartment hunting in california, but now it seems like a dream compared
to attempting it in istanbul. you see, in istanbul, you must go through
an emlak (aka real estate agent). you cannot find apartments without
an emlak unless you have an incredible amount of luck.

the emlak charges an additional 10-18% commission on top of the rent
and deposit, so i'm fairly positive most emlaks make a good living.

so we saw some good places, all of which were completely overpriced
and not worth the money. once emlaks and landlords find they are
dealing with yabancis (foreigners), the price inevitably goes up. so we
saw some nice places and then we also saw some really terrible, dodgy
apartments. one place smelled so bad i think sleeping on the streets
would be a better alternative. ugh.

today i have decided to start the "detoxing from turkish desserts" diet.
i can no longer eat sut laç, even though i want to fill up a bathtub with
sut laç and drown myself in it. (did i just type that?!) it would probably
be good for the skin since it's just milk, sugar, and rice.... it's just not
good for the ol' saddlebags.

in other news....... i purchased the latest issue of time out istanbul and
it is probably the most fascinating magazine i have read in months.
basically, the issue is completely about sex in istanbul-- which for cultural
anthropologists must be absolutely fascinating. if i can find some of the
articles online, i will post them. see, there's such a dichotomy here
regarding sex i don't even know where to begin.

wandered around taksim and into some art exhibitions.... this one was
a lot of fun because the artists were there working on new pieces:



this was my favorite piece-- i think it is a mixed media work with
oil paint and airbrush on textured fabric, but who would know?
the description was, of course, in turkish!

posted by camille @ 1:32 PM