Fener

I've been told that Autumn came early. By my book, autumn is here at the same time and in the same manner as it appears every year in Seattle. It has been cold and rainy. Today the sun made a brief appearance in the morning and I noticed some beautiful wild grape vines on the apartment across the street.

I went through Fener on my way back to Eyüp but I hadn't wandered around that area, so that was where I decided to go today. I gave Roshan the duty of being photographer for the excursion. About a block away from the bus stop we passed a man giving a shoe shine to a kid. We both found it entertaining because usually the kids are the ones who are shining shoes. We took the bus to Kücükpazar and walked to Fener along the smaller back streets along the Halic. There were some neighborhood cafes which were mostly filled with men drinking tea and talking to each other.

The only way to tell you are in Fener is by two architectural structures. The main one is a red brick high school that sits on the top of the hill. It looks like it should be some Greek Orthodox cathedral or something like that. Maybe it was at some point. I did notice something that looked like a Masonic temple symbol one the tower part. To get to the school, we walked up a very steep cobblestone street. The streets were filled with kids playing, and women working. (I guess the guys were all playing cards and backgamon down at the cafe.) Clean laundry was strung across the street from the upper apartments like flags for some weird street festival. The streets reminded me a bit of Prague. I think it was the combination of hills and cobblestones. At the top of the hill, we walked around to the back of the school and then walked a few more blocks. At one street some kids greeted us with "hello! hello!" I actually haven't had that happen to me since I left Russia. I haven't missed it (it got really annoying in Russia). It is just interesting that fewer kids here yell it at you. As we walked by them a second time (as we realized the street was a dead end), one of the kids said, "Yes!" This really suprised me because in Russia (and a lot of other countries, I'm sure) if a kid yelled out any words in English beside "hello" they were "fuck you". We walked back down the hill to the shore. There we passed the second architectural highlight of the area, the Church of Saint Stephen. This Bulgarian church sits near the water, looking a bit out of place with its fenced off gardens, and white gothic structure. It looks like it (along with its garden) just fell out of the sky. Actually it was shipped from Vienna in the 1800s. In the time of the Sultans, Fener was the center of Greek Orthodoxy in Istanbul. The Patriarchate is located in a rather polution covered Greek temple looking building in what seems like a small back street.

After we had visited the sites of Fener, we wandered around the streets. The area had a village like feel. There are lots of little shops (mostly selling household items), restaurants and food sellers. The streets were full of people but there were hardly any cars. After Roshan took a photo of these kids without them realizing it, they asked him if he would take their photo. They knew how to say "hello" too. Roshan wanted to show me an 100 year old tavern. We found it but it was closed and up for sale. We then bought some fuel for my baklava addiction.

We ate the baklava in a park. It was a rather minimalistic park with a couple benches, some paths, and not very lush plantlife. A group of chickens was taking a dust bath by a bush. I suggested taking one (they were young and probably had a full life of egg laying ahead of them). I wonder if they lived in the park or if someone just left them there during the day to forage. Then the man with the sheep caught our attention. He was walking leisurly through the park, followed by a fat wooly sheep. We went up and Roshan found out the sheep's name was "Kader" which means "fate" (generally refering to more negative things). The sheep had been cut out out of its mother who died. We didn't find out the man's name but he was friendly and scolded Kader when he didn't pose nicely for a photo.