"Ayse Ozgun: Welcome to Istanbul!
Friday, February 4, 2005
Ayse Ozgun
Whenever a celebrity arrives in Istanbul, the first question reporters ask when they corner them is this:
"How do you like Istanbul?"
No foreign celebrity is going to stand in front of a reporter and claim he found Istanbul extremely dirty, lacking in charm, full of poverty-stricken people, swarmed by flies in the summer, garbage cans spilling over on every corner, people who cough and spit on the pavements, the water of the Marmara Sea and the Bosporus full of floating rubbish, street lights out of order, danger lurking on every dark corner, beggars in rags and with outstretched hands, buses jammed with commuters, horses and carts threading their way among the cars, dogs and stray cats all over the place and a cacophony of non-matching company signs hung on every building, with cars parked on sidewalks and people forced to walk in the middle of the traffic, with uncared-for old buildings in disarray, new overnight construction of houses in different shades of green, pink and blue, etc. "
More:Turkish Daily News
