lists

Things I miss about Canada, in no particular order:

- Sunday afternoon Pho with Endri and Jessica
- Sunday evening dinners and guitar jams with my Dad
- laughing hysterically with my brother over our absurd lives
- spending time with my family
- walking alone by the river with my headphones on and then sitting on benches and writing in my journal
- drinking beers by the river with my friends
- the Ship patio and going for BRUNCH (omg Eggs benny, yes)
- goths
-girls with big tattoos and shaved heads and dreads and boots and all the rest
- drivers who obey traffic laws
- dancing to 80's music (with the aformentioned goths)
- sunsets over the prairies and maybe even sometimes driving to the mountains on the weekends
- my mom <3
- tim hortons timbits and iced caps
- late night subway subs after the bar
- pizza -available by the slice!!
- multiculturalism and feeling like ANYONE can be a Canadian if they live in Canada and we are all basically equal
- bathtubs
- vegan food! the concept of vegans! HIPPIES! the SMELL of hippie grocery stores!
- nostalgic walks through the old neighbourhoods i used to live in
- The Roasterie
- Oolong tea and chess games -and beating Endri :P
- Sheesha at cafe med with friends on friday nights
- drinking wine with Ahmad and Marko and Endri and Jess and getting silly
- Getting ridiculously drunk with Cody and Mandy and Barret and Jesse and all the rest of my awesome punk rock open minded friends and being the "responsible one" (hah!)
- Truman! my beloved cat
- hearing English being spoken

Things I will miss about Istanbul when eventually I leave:

- being surrounded by history and old buildings and mosques that were built hundreds and hundreds of years ago
- buying groceries outside my frontdoor at the weekly Tarlabasi market, and spending less than the equivalent of 10 dollars to fill up my whole fridge with fresh produce and cheese and olives and eggs
- dancing all night to gypsy arab-esque music in rooftop terraces with great friends (and having to help to quickly shut all the windows when teargas begins to float in suddenly...)
- buying illegally imported Djarum Clove cigarettes from random street stalls down on the harbour of the golden horn, for 6 lira
- Living in a building with a winding spiral staircase
- squeegee-ing my bathroom floor after i take a shower
- buying my spices in an Ancient Medieval covered bazaar
- being able to walk any direction and find new strange places - from little ramshackle cafes in Tophane and Cihangir to decrepit buildings and fish shops along the harbour at Karakoy, to those old blackened wooden Ottoman structures that are about to collapse in Kasimpasa...everywhere you go there is history and huzun and it's all for the taking, to see and breath in and smell, for free...this is probably what i'll miss most.
- Going for Nargileh as often as I like and drinking little tiny cups of tea with it
- reading Orhan Pamuk -in the city he lives in
- Iced turkish coffee at Kahve Dunyasi (like cocaine in a cup)
- waking up to the call to prayer at 530 am and then falling back asleep for an hr or so before getting up for work
- my little 2 year old class of adorable monsters
- buying dinner at my local lokanta and eating bread, rice and pasta all in the same meal
- yogurt on rice
- kumpir potatoes, 1 lira baklava and other local delicacies
- feeling like every day something new and weird could happen