One day in November, 2003, after I had been in Turkey for only about three weeks, I was walking back to my apartment after a few hours of urban exploration.
My trip home included hopping a tram that went up a steep hill (for those of you who know Istanbul, I mean the Tunel, going uphill to Istiklal Caddesi). But the station was shut down and deserted. I was puzzled as to why, but I just shrugged it off and decided to hoof it up the winding streets that led to the top of the hill.
As I meandered my way up that hill, groups of people were huddled in doorways listening to radios. They looked scared and bewildered. I had no idea why, I just figured that that must be how they acted in this neighborhood.
When I got to the top of the hill, I realized what had happened. There had been a large bomb blast near the British Consulate just off Istiklal Street a few minutes before. Some people were dead, many were injured, and the streets were quickly filling with ambulances and police cars.
Istiklal and the surrounding streets were littered with glass. The cell phones were down, so I stopped by my future brother-in-law’s workplace, about 3 blocks from the blast, to make sure he was okay, and to tell him I was okay too and to try to get word to my future wife, who would be worried about us.
The police were cordoning off the area, but I cut through quickly to make my way home. I’ve never seen so much broken glass in my life. I think I stepped on so much of it that I walked a half mile without my feet ever touching the ground.
The next morning I went back down there to check out the neighborhood. It was abuzz with people carrying brooms and trash cans, and the sidewalks were clogged with trucks delivering new panes of glass for the shops.
My mind was blown away to see that after a major bomb blast with death, blood, and destruction, the city was busy cleaning up so it could be fully operational again 24 hours after the blast.
When I saw that that was how they reacted to an attack on their own soil, I fell deeply in love with that country.