A trip to suburbia

Today was another lovely day, so we decided to try to get to the Kuş Cenneti, the bird sanctuary (bird paradise, literally) on the other side of the harbour. We hopped onto the bus that the web site said would take us to a place where we could get another bus that would go fairly close.

We rode from one end of the bus line to the other - about 45 minutes - through parts of the city that have become fairly familiar by now into the definitely upscale suburbs across the bay. I'd never been so far west in this area; Ron used to teach English at a car parts plant near the end of the line, but he'd always been driven there by one of the students, usually in the dark, so it was all new to him, too. We passed blocks and blocks of new highrise apartment buildings, most of them finished. We even saw some townhouse developments built in an Ottoman-revival style, like Victorian-style townhouses you'd see in Toronto suburbs.

The bus route ended at a huge new shopping centre out in the middle of a field that would soon be more apartments. No sign of a bird paradise there! The bus driver asked where we wanted to go, and we told him, and he responded with the fastest Turkish we'd ever heard. It seemed to boil down to "You can't get there from here".

Okay, so we went shopping. Got a new toaster at a sort of two-storey Canadian Tire that had signs all over the place saying "You can't get this any cheaper anywhere". Trouble was, we knew we could get most of it for about half the price from the sidewalk vendors near home. We did see some really wonderful mosaics that we could imagine in Ron's brother Earl's front hall - just beautiful! - but we couldn't imagine how to carry all 100 kg or so home on the plane. If we can find a way, get ready to tear up your floor, Earl.

So we wandered around the shopping centre feeling quite uncertain which part of the universe we were in. It could have been Calgary or Vancouver or Toronto, but the food court had kebap joints and there was a traditional Turkish toilet in the washroom (as well as a couple of less traditional ones) with a lineup to use it. No doubt about which country we were in at the supermarket, though; the shopping cart drivers were unmistakeably Turkish.

I didn't like the place. There was so much fuss about security - I set off the alarm leaving the store with the (paid-for) toaster and thought I was going to be shot. Nobody seemed to enjoy working there. There was no life in the place. It felt so good to get back to our home neighborhood where our veggie sellers don't mind giving us free Turkish lessons and people take the time to enjoy themselves and each other. The suburbs are definitely not to our taste.

Someday soon we must rent a car and get out to the Kuş Cenneti before someone notices that there might be a problem with bird flu and closes the place. The brief glimpse I got of a couple of Dalmatian Pelicans last month from a harbour ferry just whetted my apetite, and I want to see the flamingos.