This morning I wake up early. After seeing the victory of the OM on my iPod Touch with the wi-fi connection, I go for a stroll and wander around the house, and then I come back and sit on the stairs in front of my room. It’s at that moment that Homid comes out of his room, he’s getting ready to catch a plane to Berlin.

When he’s finished taking his shower, we go downstairs and he proposes that we go drink a fruit juice. I stay alone in the garden, listening to the dog bark when a young man passes. When I finish my juice I bring my glass to the kitchen and that’s when I see a large television. I turn it on and I come across TV5 Monde, a French channel that can be found all over the world in hotels. I watch the programs a little and find France 2’s Télématin.

Maheen, Nader’s wife, comes to prepare breakfast. I get up, say hi and ask her if she needs any help, she answers no. I insist but she assures me that it’s ok, so I sit back down and keep watching TV. It’s not every day that I hear French being spoken! It’s a bit of France in a house that is a little Iranian, in Turkey.

After the news, Nader arrives and I give him the remote control since I’m finished watching what I wanted to watch. Dad arrives and we sit to have breakfast at a table filled with good things that we haven’t had for breakfast in a long time…like jam, good bread and cheese. During breakfast, I speak with Nader and his wife about my desire to obtain Iranian citizenship, as well as my French nationality. They tell me that it’s not a problem and that I only need to go to the embassy in France and ask for it. And if they don’t want to give it to me in France, I just have to go to Ankara with them where the Iranian ambassador is a good friend of theirs. After, I go and get our things ready and, with Amir, I try to send the photos I had previously put in folders. But for some reason we can’t send the folders from Amir’s computer, so have to send each picture individually. It takes a very long time. Lucky that Amir is there to help me. When we are finally finished, we put all our things in the car and we’re ready to go. Dad joins us and we head towards Nader’s office to say goodbye since we won’t see him before our train departure tonight. Luckily this morning there isn’t much traffic. We arrive, Nader shows me his Iranian passport and I’m speechless. After showing Nader and Bahram our blog, we leave for the Bosporus. We arrive rather quickly.

Dad asks me to put on the microphone and talk with Amir about anything that could interest young people in France. We talk about Turkey, Iran, soccer and all sorts of things. After this short stroll along the Bosporus, we go towards Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. We go into a place that is walled but filled with light and life all around. Tourists mix with locals to do business. There are large avenues and small streets; it’s like a city inside a city. After going around for a bit, we go in a restaurant to eat a Kebab, it tastes so good after not having it for a while. When we are finished, we go to see Nader’s cousin who has a currency exchange shop in the bazaar. His store is well seen in the bazaar and I learn a lot about currency exchange. We go have another look around the bazaar when Ara Gular, a great photographer, calls us. He proposes to dad that we go see him, so we take the car.

We head towards Ara Gular’s café, but since Amir doesn’t know it and neither do we, it takes a while to find it; but hey, we found it! Arriving in front of the Ara Café, we look for this man. Further from us, we see a short, bald, and rather round man talking with other people. We come closer to him and when he sees us, he’s becomes really happy. He tells us to go have a seat and he’ll come talk to us. We order something to drink and eat and then we wait. He comes. He proposes to dad that they speak French, which he accepts, but then he answers in Turkish, thanks a lot! I didn’t understand anything. Ara Gular proposes that that we go see his museums and office while he keeps talking with his German friends. We go upstairs and we read stories as his photos go by. I am fascinated by all the personalities he photographed and met. But what fascinates me the most is that this man has a drawing of himself, in his office, made by a certain PICASSO.

We go back downstairs and I go talk to Ara. I learn that he lived nearly half his life in Paris, but today he doesn’t want to take the plane anymore because it scares him. He gives me a book, I thank him, say goodbye and we go back to the car. We head towards the shores of the Bosporus to take a boat. After a while doing research, we finally find the boat, but while Amir goes to buy the tickets, dad is gone who-knows-where to take some photos. We look for him everywhere since the boat is about to leave any minute now. Finally, he arrives at the last minute and we jump in the boat.

The boat does a round-trip between the European shore and the Asian shore of Istanbul. Each time we want to photograph Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, there’s a boat that hides our view. We get off at a stop where, 14 years ago, I set foot for the first time in Asia. There are even pictures of it at home in the family album. Then, the boat becomes empty and later fills up with more people for the return trip and we’re the only ones to stay in the boat. Behind us, there is a young man wearing a T-shirt from a French brand and I say to myself: “He can only be French”. I approach him and say “hi”. And then we start talking. Actually, he’s of Turkish origin, lives in Rennes and is member of a Rap group called MICRONOLOGIE, which I recommend you listen to.

We talked about everything in Turkey, France, the suburbs, rap, etc. We get back on the other shore of the Bosporus and we say goodbye. Then, we go look for a restaurant. I have a fish Kebab while dad and Amir go to a typical Turkish restaurant. I only take two Ayrans. Then, we head towards the train station and since we’re early we sit in the Orient Express café. We go near the train and we come across an Iranian man who lives in Bucharest. We see a touching love scene: a young woman crying in the arms of her boyfriend on the train’s platform. We go into the train and settle into our compartment. And then we fall asleep. We are woken up in the middle of the night: we’re at the Bulgarian border and everyone has to get off! We’ve never had to do that in any of the other trains or at any border! Of course, we’re the last ones and we have to wait the longest. We get controlled after waiting and standing for an hour, and then I go to bed and sleep. The train can leave now.

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