Once upon a time in Turkey...

Julia COHEN: I am in my fourth year of a doctoral program in History at Stanford University. I do research on the Judeo-Spanish communities of the Ottoman Empire, and, in order to further my studies in this field, I began studying modern Turkish last year at Stanford. Over the course of the class, I made friends with other people who had links to Turkey, including Turkish people in the area.

By last spring, I had decided to spend the summer in an intensive Turkish-language program in Istanbul. When I went, I was lucky enough to be greeted by many friends and family of Demet Yezgi, a Turkish friend I had made during my time at Stanford. The two months I spent in Istanbul were amazing. I lived and studied at Bosphorus (Bogazici) University, but made frequent trips around the city’s many historic neighborhoods.

I spent as much time as I could exploring, whether it was on the city’s myriad ferry boats, large and small, that tour along the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn and beyond, or on foot, walking through neighborhoods that are not part of the regular tours, just to see how people lived. On one such walk, a friend and I discovered an artist gallery, almost hidden in a winding alley between the neighborhoods of Fener and Balat: There I purchased artwork from local Turkish artists, which I now have hanging on my apartment walls. These, of course, are not the only things I have brought back with me; I now also memories and friends I will never forget, as well as a great desire to return.