Istanbul is amazing!

People who know me know traveling isn’t my highest priority, but it can add so much to your life. American culture says so little about Turkey. I’ve been trying to think of mainstream cultural references to it but the main ones I could think of were the movies Midnight Express and Gallipoli. The former was one of the main reason I don’t like Oliver Stone and is a terrible representation of Turkey and human beings in general. The latter was a great movie, but represented Turks as the enemy.

I asked my Turkish host if he knew of U.S. cultural references to Turkey and he started singing “Istanbul was Constantinople…”, which was a great laugh.

Another Turkish friend pointed out how Americans hesitate to visit Turkey, not knowing much about it. Istanbul is a beautiful Mediterranean city!

Anyway, I have to run to meet a new Turkish friend for dinner and exploring. I’ll write more about joys of traveling.

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