Turkey: loud and proud. E. Thomas

                I had no idea what to expect from Turkey.  Ümit Isin, our main tour guide, asked me what I thought it would be like, and how reality deferred; I answered truthfully, that I tried purposefully to keep my mind blank before the trip.  Though I had made an effort to learn something of Turkey’s history, even of its terrain and climate, there is nothing that can truly prepare you to experience something so foreign.  I did not want to spend my time comparing everything to my preconceptions.  Still, some assumptions leaked in, I suppose.  From all the talk of the heat and perhaps a vague misconception, I have to admit I was expecting something more arid and barren.

Nowhere else in the world that I have heard of can you find buildings striped vertically with alternating lime green and neon orange.

I was shocked to find that Turkey was so verdant.  Everything in Turkey is vibrant, in fact: the clothing, the street signs, the people, even the houses.  I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, home to renowned “Rainbow Row”, but those pastel houses have nothing on even the most basic Turkish village.  Their palette of acceptable colours is on a different scale altogether, and I immediately found that I loved just looking around.  Nowhere else in the world that I have heard of can you find buildings striped vertically with alternating lime green and neon orange.  It’s distinctive and, to me at least, endearing.

Though the airport in Ankara could have passed for any international hub in the United States, the moment I stepped outside, the difference was apparent.  I had never thought of the US being meticulously planned before, but in comparison to Turkish cities, American cities are simple.  Turkey is so much more organic; suburbs grow out of the hills as if they were part of the terrain.  The practice of squatting is almost unheard of in the US, but it’s a legitimate way of acquiring property in many of the places we visited, especially Ankara.  People just build homes and live in a place long enough that it eventually becomes part of the official city.

To put it quaintly, Turkey is loud and proud.  It is messy and disorganized, colourful shops shoved into every nook and cranny and stacked on top of each other.  The Turks, though, navigate with ease.