In the metro, I almost never made it inside. I kept waiting for people to get out first because, in my mind, that’s what civilized society had collectively agreed on at some point in history. Unfortunately, Istanbul had apparently missed that meeting. In supermarket lines, older women would aggressively cut in front of me and I’d think, oh, she probably didn’t notice me.

She noticed me.

What I didn’t understand back then was that all of this was part of a very specific Istanbul survival strategy. People here aren’t necessarily rude. They’re just moving through life with the urgency of someone trying to board the last helicopter out of a collapsing city.

Meanwhile, I was still emotionally processing everything. The overstimulation hit me harder than I expected. Some days it felt impossible to walk through the city without wanting to cry at least once.

A dead bird on the sidewalk.
A sick cat hiding under a scooter.
An exhausted dog sleeping next to traffic.

Or an old man standing in front of the meat section at the supermarket, quietly talking to himself about how expensive everything had become and what he was even supposed to eat anymore. And then there was me, lying awake at 2 AM, suddenly trying to mentally establish:

A retirement support organization,
A neighborhood animal shelter,
A low-cost sterilization program,
and possibly an after-school youth center.

I kept thinking: somebody should really do something. And then my brain would answer: somebody also has work tomorrow, so calm down. Maybe that’s a German thing. You see a problem and immediately assume it can be solved if enough people organize properly and someone opens an Excel sheet.