Mapping the Rabbit Warren, 1

An old postcard of Kemeraltı

     Yesterday the new train station in my district opened.  I used to take buses downtown, and most of the time I couldn't be bothered, because one could never get a seat on the return trip.  It doesn't take much to get me excited, and when I woke up this morning my toes were tingling.  "Tingling with excitement" is just a turn of phrase to many people.  Not to me.  
     I think that if the school will let me, I will get an aquarium for my class, so that my kids can have a fish to name, to care for, to rally around and to cheer them up.  Going to Kemeraltı is much more of an adventure than finding one at the local pet store, and a lot cheaper besides.  It also means Turkish practice.  After a year, I no longer have to carry a dictionary around with me.  I still sound like a seven-year-old, but it makes people smile.  They open their hearts quickly, it seems, when they see me flailing about for verbs.

Look at my new fish

     Kemeraltı is over four hundred years old, but I get the feeling that it has not changed much.  It teems with as many people as it ever has.  You feel like an extra in a movie.  It still sells anything one could imagine.  Today I saw a man selling harpoons. People still lose their way. I have been here about ten times, and have managed to do this on every occasion.  No longer.  You see, I have decided to map this rabbit warren.  Kemeraltı covers only a couple of square kilometers, but is filled with small and confusing passageways.  Today I finished the southwest corner and found everything I wanted, including an inflatable airplane for the Year 1 teacher.  For lunch, I had pan-fried oysters and mackerel on white bread.  He was serving a restaurant full of customers, but my waiter stopped to chat with some boys about a goldfish they had just bought.  To be around things like this makes me happy. 
     More tomorrow.