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Welcome to Istanbul Trails - a blog about Istanbul, seen through the eyes of a non-Turk, a foreigner.
At the end of 2004 I set sail for Istanbul for a sabbatical year off from work. Why Istanbul one may wonder? Back in 2001 I visited this cosmopolitan for the first time and I was immediately charmed by its beauty, its cultural inheritance, the hospitality of the people and last but not least the melodious language of the inhabitants.
Not that I was acquainted with the latter, on the contrary! Although it sounded (and still does) as music to my ears, it proved to be one of the biggest hurdles I had to take. Aside from all the shortcomings I encountered along the way, I gradually fell more and more in love with this city where continents meet. Someone once told me:
Istanbul is like a drug: when you have it, sometimes you consider to get rid of it. But when you don’t have it, you desperately want it back!
In a way he was right! So I took one more year off from work to explore this ‘wisdom’ in depth. A year in which I met the love of my life, hence made me decide to permanently relocate to Istanbul.
It goes without saying that these events (marriage, in-laws from different countries/cultures, house hunting, job hunting, etc.) together with my previous ‘tourist’ experiences resulted in an invaluable amount of information. A treasure that I want to share with the world to make the life of future tourists, expats or immigrants easier.
Welcome to Istanbul Trails!
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