Turkish Delight

This piece was originally written for Baedeker Travel Magazine at NYU. It was completed on November 4th, 2015. I refrained from publishing it until I heard back from Baedeker on whether or not they would publish it. However, at this point I don’t really know what is going on with them so I decided to just publish it on my own blog. Enjoy.

 

When I first set out to write this piece I envisioned it going a different way. I wanted to write a story that talked about the Turkish people and how welcoming they are, in an attempt to dispel the notion that it is unsafe to travel to non-white European countries, Muslim countries in particular. I wanted to write about the Istanbul that I experienced, a bright city propelled by its aims at modernism but still holding on to the age old traditions that distinguish its rich culture. I wanted to share my appreciation for architectural wonders like Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque and my admiration for the thought provoking and well-curated works at Istanbul Modern. I wanted to write about the people I encountered and the small interactions I had that reaffirmed my belief that Turkey and its people were worth getting to know.

And then, someone broke into my Airbnb in the middle of the night and stole my precious phone, camera, and money.

I would be lying if I said getting my stuff stolen didn’t sour my opinion of the country. In fact, for a brief moment it made me hate Turkey and it made me feel guilty for not listening to the many warnings of friends and family who implored me not to go. I felt cheated by this city that I had wanted to love but that left me with little more than a broken heart and several boxes of Turkish delight. But Turkey was not done with me.

On my flight back to Paris almost as if by divine intervention, I sat next to Ilhan, a Turkish man who sensing my sadness, did everything in his power to make cheer me up. He listened to my unfortunate tale with sad understanding eyes, nodding his head along in sympathy and giving me advice on how to get some sort of justice. He pulled out a fragrant bag filled with home made Turkish pastries and gave me half of them, refusing to take no for an answer. When the airhostess came by with a cart of drinks for sale, he insisted on buying me “something to ease my troubles”. Ilhan asked me about my family and told me about his and treated me as if I were of his own flesh and blood. His kindness made me forget about the electronics that were no longer in my possession and focused my attention on the trip itself. My thoughts began to flashback to some of the more pleasantly memorable pieces of our trip and the people that made them important in the simplest ways.

Our days always began with a traditional sesame pretzel from a quaint little red cart in Taksim square. The pretzels themselves were nothing out of this world, but they were cheap, and the man who sold them to us was taken with our politeness and our attempts to communicate with him despite the fact that we didn’t speak Turkish and he didn’t speak a single drop of English. Given that we were continually thanking him in place of having an actual conversation, he attempted to teach us how to say teşekkür ederim, thank you, in Turkish. We continually failed, and he continued patiently teaching us, smirking every time we butchered it and smiling triumphantly when we finally got it right.

Then I remembered the day we attempted to get into Topkapi Palace for a second time using our museum card. We weren’t aware of the fact that you could only use your card once to get in and the guard apologetically said there was nothing he could do. However, upon explaining to him that we hadn’t had the chance to see the Harem, his demeanor instantly became charged with the desire to share with us the treasures of his country. He asked us to stand to one side while he talked to his superiors about what he could do to let us in. His superiors simply said that we were out of luck. But the guard waited until they weren’t looking and asked one of his tour guide buddies to scan his own pass, which deactivates the doors so people on a tour can go through. The guard simply winked at us as he ushered us through, clearly proud that he had helped us out but not making a big show of it or expecting any sort of compensation. He was seemed simply glad to share his patrimony.

Finally, I thought of the day when we were exploring Iztiklal Caddesi, a popular shopping street in the modern part of the city. As we were waiting to cross the street, a group of young guys came up to my friends and I and asked in English if we were from Istanbul because they needed help getting somewhere. We simply responded that we were also dumbfounded tourists and any attempt at helping them with directions would probably end up getting them more lost. Upon hearing our inability to help, a Turkish man who was just standing by quickly turned around and offered his help. He gave the guys some directions and even outlined the path on the map they had. I was astonished at the fact that this random person had no hesitation to help even when they didn’t directly ask him. This however, seems to be very common in Istanbul. I myself had many random people intervene on my behalf while trying to buy something or trying to negotiate cab fare. To me these were great acts of altruism, but all the people who advocated for me simply brushed it off, replying that since they had the ability to help, they should.

As I remembered all of these selfless people, I began to smile widely, attracting the attention of Ilhan who nudged me and said, “I’m glad to see you’re not so sad anymore.”

Ilhan was right, I wasn’t sad anymore. The anger at having lost my personal possessions dissipated with my remembrance of all the good times I had in Turkey. I realized I still loved my trip to Istanbul. I still thought it was worthwhile and I was definitely glad I had gone. Having my things stolen made me take a step back and really analyze my entire trip. But after all I realized that that really terrible moment couldn’t overshadow my whole memory of Istanbul. I couldn’t judge the entire country on the actions of one individual.

This realization really emphasized the idea that I originally wanted to explore in this piece. As westerners, and especially as part of the population affected by 9/11 and its aftermath, it seems we have become hardened to Muslim nations. Sometimes subconsciously, other times more overtly, a lot of us try distance ourselves from Arab nations and people out of fear. As a society we often generalize the acts of this or that radical group to a whole people or a whole body of believers. I myself am guilty of thinking in this way after being personally wronged but after analyzing my reaction I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t being fair.

I was hesitant to go to Istanbul, I was told explicitly not to go by people I trust. I personally had a bad experience there. But I also had a lot of good experiences. The people I met, the food I enjoyed, and the beautiful art I saw made me fall in love with Turkey. I have a good reason to not go back and to dismiss the country as dangerous. But the truth is, I still want to go back. There is danger everywhere, there is crime everywhere, but ultimately, crimes are rare instances committed by bad people.

So forget your hesitations. Go to Istanbul or Bogota, or Mexico City or whatever place you’re missing out on because you’ve been scared away. I for one will not stop recommending Istanbul as a travel destination. The peace that befalls the city after a long prayer call and the succulent baklava on every corner are more than enough incentive for me to make the long trek back to Turkey as soon as possible. Besides, as Ilhan pointed out, I have to go back and recapture all those photos I lost.

Istanbul, Turkey/ Paris, France

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A Girl Defends Her City

Tupac and Biggie might have taken it a little far with their coast-y love but I get it. It’s important to represent your turf. It’s not easy living in a city. Living in a huge metropolis is not as simple and glamorous as Gossip Girl and Friends make it seem-it’s expensive, it’s cramped, it’s dirty and oftentimes, as one of thousands of people, you feel anonymous and unimportant. Still there’s a reason cities are so appealing and people from Sinatra to Kendrick sing their praises. People work hard to get the chance to move to big places like LA, New York, Paris, London, etc. (and they work even harder to stay). So when you do live in a dreamy city and you can still love it despite all the crap that comes with it, you can’t help but develop a certain sense of pride for your city.

I am so proud to live in New York. I am all about that concrete jungle where dreams are made of (or wet dream tomatoes, gotta work on that enunciation Alicia). I would wear those gaudy “I ❤ New York” t-shirts 24/7 if they didn’t make me look like a lame tourist. In short, New York is BAE (I hate myself for using that phrase, but it’s true). Now that I am living in Paris, and especially post-November 13^th attacks, I am also extremely proud to live in this city. I have to hold back from doing the t-shirt equivalent and constantly wear a beret. So when my mom came to visit me in Paris this past week, I was stoked to show her just how cool Paris is.

Of course while I planned a brilliant let-me-get-you-to-fall-in-love-with-Paris itinerary I kind of forgot that my mom isn’t a huge city fanatic like I am. In fact, she’s not a city person at all. She doesn’t like museums, she doesn’t care for architecture, she has no interest in history, she is anti-walking fast, and she most definitely is not down with rats (the nerve!). I planned to cram the 6 days my mom would be here with everything pretty and Parisian and she was having none of it. Notre Dame was meh. The top of the Eiffel Tower was too high for her. And the Louvre, oh the Louvre. She didn’t even want to take a picture with the damn pyramid like a normal tourist. She was more interested by the fact that straight men kiss each other on the cheek here than any of the world-famous pieces at the Louvre. I was frankly offended.

First of all I couldn’t believe how little interest my mom showed in any of the activities and places that are so quintessentially Parisian. As someone who loves to travel and see new cultures it baffled me that she didn’t really care to experience anything that makes Paris and its people unique,The world renowned museums that Paris is home to and the history that is contained in its walls meant absolutely nothing to her. The only thing that captivated her attention was shopping, which we did endlessly. What bothered me the most is how little she valued being in Paris. To a lot of people coming to Paris is a dream and to my mom it seemed more like something she just decided to do because, why not?

This isn’t the first time my mom dissed my city, she showed the same level of disinterest (and disgust) when she went to New York. All she did was complain the entire time she was there. Ay Sammy, why do you like to live in such a small room? Sammy it smells like urine everywhere. Sammy I don’t know why you like to ride the subway-it’s so dirty. Sammy why are you walking so fast? You would think I was living in the middle of a dump, not a large cosmopolitan city, from all the comments she made. I was so angry at how she reduced New York to nothing more than a dirty city. I mean she’s right, it does smell like urine everywhere, but it’s NEW YORK, I’ll take a little pee on the sidewalk over not living there any day.

The truth is, I love the cities that I live in and to me they are amazing so it’s always hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that other people don’t like my cities as much as I do. In fact, I can barely understand the concept of people not wanting to live in a city (where else are you supposed to live? The countryside?) I love big cities because they’re fast paced and exhilarating and there is always something to do. But I forget that those are precisely the reasons why people don’t like them. New York especially is a place that I’ve heard many Texans scoff at and dismiss as “somewhere they would never want to live.” It always takes everything in me because to not make some wise ass remark about how they couldn’t handle it anyway, because how dare they not value NYC as a place to live.

But the thing is, even though I love New York and Paris and all their big city pals, even I sometimes find myself thinking I may not want to be a city girl forever. I see articles about how married couples have to get roommates because their combined income just doesn’t cut it for rent. I watch as moms in the subway struggle to awkwardly get their strollers up the endless steps out onto the street. I work with kindergartners who don’t know the joy of running around in their own back yard and have to walk all the way to a local park to get the feel of some grass under their feet. Even worse, I see old people get bumped and pushed around as busy city dwellers fly off to their next appointment. I see all this and even I think sometimes, why would anyone want to live here? So I guess every once in a while I do have to put aside my tremendous pride of big cities and recognize that they aren’t exactly the warm homey places that some people need to live in and they are definitely not for everyone. I have to think that just like some people could never see themselves living in a big city, there is no way in hell I could ever live in a small town. A place where you actually know your neighbors (and they know everything about you)? Fuggedaboutit.

Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get tired of hopping along from big city to big city. Maybe some day I’ll move to a (slightly) smaller city and be ok with not having great museums and bars all over the place. But that’s not gonna happen for a looooonggg time. In the meantime I’ll keep repping the East side (and Paris) and you can be sure to find me at the Louvre.

Paris, France

Never Again (?)

When I was in third grade my teacher read a book to us called Number The Stars. It was about a Danish girl and her family who helped hide their jewish friends during WWII. I don’t really know what it was about that book,I can’t even recall any details now, but it drew me in to World War II and sparked my interest in the Holocaust specifically. I just couldn’t comprehend with my little 8 year old mind how something like that could happen. So I went through book after book and movie after movie-anything I could get my hands on that concerned the Holocaust in order to answer all my questions. How could someone be filled with so much hate towards another human being? How could something like this happen? How could the world just stand and watch?

Of course these are complex questions and I don’t think I will ever be able to find satisfactory answers. But I have continued my search and learned a lot about the Holocaust in the process. As part of this journey I have always wanted to go to Auschwitz, to see it for myself. This past Saturday November 14th I finally did it, I went to Auschwitz. Of course, my much anticipated journey to this nightmarish place happened to be the day after the Paris attacks and I couldn’t help but think of the terror that my fellow Parisians were experiencing as I stood in this place that not so long ago was terror incarnate for so many.

As I stood shivering in the biting Polish cold-sweater, parka, boots and all- I thought of the unbearable cold the prisoners of this camp must have felt in their barely-there striped jumpsuits. I also thought of the the bitter coldness that Parisians must be feeling in the wake of such a violent assault. As I walked from barrack to barrack and looked around at the vast field that once contained hundreds more, I thought of the thousands of people that had been forced to walk around here and that were held captive by these wooden planks, this grass, this barbed wire. I also thought of of how empty the streets of Paris must be, robbed by Fear of their usual inhabitants walking to and fro, living their lives. As I looked at the ruins of a gas chamber, now little more than piles of concrete teeming with moss. I thought about the thousands of innocent people who had been sacrificed to this concrete in the name of ideology. I also thought about the rubble lying on the Parisian sidewalks; pieces of walls, shards of glass, all lying defeatedly. I thought about the 130 people who had been sacrificed to these streets in the name of ideology.

One of the phrases you always hear when you go to Holocaust museums or exhibits, or in this case, Auschwitz, is some variation of the following: “We show you all of this so that something as horrible as this will never be allowed to happen again.” And yet, despite all this education and awareness and evidence of what can happen when we let hatred go to far, it still happens. There is still genocide, there are still religious wars, there are still acts of terror; there is still unnecessary loss of life.

I’m not trying to compare the Holocaust to the terrorist attacks on Paris-they’re two very different things. But in a way they are very similar at their core, or at least, in why they happened. Quite simply, hatred. Terroristic activity and the Holocaust are and were acts of hatred. Both victimize human beings because they are externally different from their attackers. Hitler killed Jews because they didn’t fit into his idea of perfection. ISIS and other extremist Islamic groups kill westerners because their lifestyle is so contrary to their own ideal lifestyle. In the end all of the rhetoric boils down to people’s hatred of things and people that are different from them.

The scarier thing is, Nazis and ISIS are extreme examples but there is so much more hatred in the world, in smaller forms but equally capable of reaching these immense levels. There are people like Donald Trump who  victimize immigrants and would do a lot of drastic things to make them disappear. There are so many instances of racism and hate crimes on college campuses and abuse of people of color amongst police forces. There are people who given the circumstances in France are already hating on Syrian refugees and using them as scapegoats (in the same way that Hitler blamed the woes of Germany on Jews), ignoring the fact that these people are themselves escaping terror at home. The only thing that differentiates these hateful ideologies from those of Nazis and ISIS is that they haven’t been acted upon on a wide scale. But what’s to say they won’t be?

As I looked around Auschwitz, at this immense piece of land, developed for the sole purpose of acting out the hatred of one man by working its slaves to their deaths, I couldn’t help but cry. I cried as I thought of all the human life that has been lost to hatred and ignorance. I cried for all the children who wont get to grow mentally and physically, for all the young people who won’t have the chance to create countless memories, for the mothers and fathers who probably worried about their loved ones until the last second, and for the elderly who didn’t get to live out their las years relishing in peace in all they had accomplished with their lives. I cried for French people, and Americans, and Syrians, and Nigerians, and Vietnamese people, and Mexicans and Haitians and for everyone because we are all humans and we all want to live-but some of us won’t get to because of the hatred of others.

I said a little prayer for humanity because we haven’t learned our lesson. Because we’re still killing each other senselessly.

After I said my prayer I wondered, what will our future be like? I wondered if we’ll ever learn to stop hating others. I wondered in what way hatred will manifest itself next and who will have to suffer for it. Will we let it happen? Will we just stand by and watch?

 

 Paris, France/Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland

 

La Douleur de Paris

Unlike a lot of my fellow Millenials I am not one to post about politics or show my solidarity with this or that cause on Facebook (except for Kony 2012 of course, but I was like 15 and stupid so I think I deserve a pass on that one). I do this for 3 reasons. 1. Facebook for me is a place to talk to family, post photos and occasionally rant about exciting things in my life. 2. I am not a fan of shoving my political/social/religious opinions in everyone’s faces. 3. As someone who eventually wants to be a journalist, I believe in keeping a bias-free image (of course, no one is truly bias-free, but I do my best). All that being said, I have been on Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media basically non stop since Friday to see what is being said about the attacks in Paris and this time I felt compelled to join in and show my support for Paris. That’s right, I changed my profile photo to look like the French flag.

Of course, to me it made sense to change my picture. I live in Paris; this tragedy affected the place I am calling home at the moment and my personal sense of safety. It affected my friends, some of which live right by Le Bataclan and Le Petit Cambodge and had to stay in a hotel that night because they were too afraid to go home. Some of which were sitting at restaurants close to the cafes that were attacked and had to watch as people ran away from the chaos and tried to hide in these establishments. Some of which are flying back to the states early because they can’t stop thinking “what if I get shot today?” So yes, I changed my picture as did my fellow NYU students and people from New York, Austin, and all over the world to show our support of France. It felt nice, really, to see so many people’s pictures changed to the beautiful red white an blue stripes of the French flag. It felt nice that people cared and wanted to show they cared. But of course, people can’t let a good deed go unpunished.

Almost as soon as people started changing their profile pictures and writing a few words of support a whole other group of people started bashing their actions. Without missing a beat, Social Justice Warriors felt the need to demonize support for Paris given that so many other places were also being tormented by violence. You couldn’t even finish typing out the word Paris before statuses of people admonishing the lack of support for Beirut, Japan, and Mexico flooded your newsfeed. At one point people even started posting an article about a massacre in Kenya claiming that Paris was stealing the spotlight from this horrific event, which actually happened to take place in April (but you know, we should stop focusing on Paris). Perhaps the worst part is that people made this about race (because of course everything is about race) and started saying that people who showed solidarity with France were actually racist because they only cared about white pain. Give me a break.

I was embarrassed for humanity. Not only are we screwed because we keep killing each other left and right (that’s right Social Justice Warriors, I’m acknowledging death of all colors) but you know there is something disturbingly wrong when we can’t even let someone mourn without feeling the need to one up them on their misery. It’s honestly fucking ridiculous that in the world we live in, a country and its allies aren’t even allowed to mourn for one day, or even a few hours before someone feels the need to point out all the other death that is being “ignored”. In this day and age you’re a monster if you have an actual connection to just one place. That won’t do. You have to be constantly supporting every death of every country of every day-or you’re an insensitive racist fuck.

I wasn’t shocked by this reaction from the general Facebook populace. This happens all the time, every tragedy is automatically turned into a commodity or thwarted to fit the rhetoric of every political movement on the face of the planet. It’s not new, but it doesn’t make it right. I don’t understand what people get from hijacking a tragedy to fit their agenda, it generally doesn’t do anything to help their cause and it just makes them look like jerks. The whole “my horrible suicide bombing is worse than your horrible suicide bombing” argument is unproductive, idiotic, and such a slap in the face to the people that actually die in these events and their families. All terrorism is horrible and tragic and it doesn’t need to be made worse by people trying to fit it onto some imaginary scale to get their point across.

What’s more, all this arguing over what country has it worse and how racist white people are for “not caring” about death in other countries is distracting from the one thing people should be able to do without judgment-mourn the loss of life.   People should be allowed to mourn or simply to respond to something that shocks them without fearing that by doing so they’ll be insensitive to someone else. Everyone has their own tragedies and their own ways to deal with them and having someone yelling over their Facebook loudspeaker “but do you cry over the children in Africa?!” is robbing people of their freedom to feel their grief. There is nothing more disgusting to me than someone forbidding someone their own emotions.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Beirut, Japan or Kenya (and I definitely don’t have anything against Mexico). I don’t think that the deaths that happened there are deserved. I don’t think that any death is deserved, especially deaths caused by ignorance and hatred. When I pray at night I pray for everyone in this world because we’re all living in an awful place. But I don’t live in Beirut, I live in Paris. I’ve always wanted to live in Paris, I have French host parents, I have been struggling to learn French for years-I have a relationship with Paris. I can’t say the same thing about Beirut. So when a terrorist attack happens in Beirut around the same time that one happens in Paris, I’m going to be sadder about Paris, not even sadder, just more attentive, because I have a connection with Paris. And you know what? That’s ok. Or at least, it should be. I should be able to write poems and cry and pray and do whatever it is that is comforting to me and be sad about whomever I am sad about because these are all natural responses to loss. I shouldn’t have to apologize for the way I grieve or who I grieve for.

I know that changing my profile picture on an online social network does nothing to end terrorism or return the killed to their families or end all wars but reminding people of this fact also does nothing to better the world. It gives me comfort to go on Facebook and scroll through a sea of tri-colored photos and if that doesn’t give someone else comfort that’s fine too. You don’t have to care about the attacks on Paris, you can be racist yourself and not care about the loss of white lives, you can think what I am doing to grieve for something that is important to me is stupid-that’s ok too. But don’t you dare make me feel bad for doing what gives me comfort. Don’t you dare qualify my own grief against the grief of others. Most of all, don’t you dare make me apologize for mourning over something that is dear to me.

Paris, France

Vendredi 13/11/15.

 

When you live in a big city, there are certain things that come with it. For one, you should probably be ready to shell out loads of cash constantly for everything from your organic Trader Joe’s groceries to your exorbitant rent that you don’t even know how you afford. You can also kiss that whole big yard with a white picket fence pipe dream goodbye because that crazy rent money will barely be enough to get you a shoebox of an apartment. On the bright side, you can count on some pretty wild public transportation stories to wow your non-city friends (have I told you about the time I saw a dude poop on the subway bench?). But one thing that comes with living in a big place with a concentrated population is the one that most people generally overlook, or like to forget, and that is the potential for terrorism.

Yes, that big T word that makes everyone tremble is very much a real thing when you live in a city. New york is the blatant example, 9/11 happened there and it’s not because it’s a little podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Even Austin experienced its five minutes of fear when North Korea placed it on a list of American cities that should be expecting some major Kim Jong-Un wrath (he must just hate good music and BBQ). I have to admit, when I moved to Paris I was a little worried. I’m not any more exposed to the threat of terrorism in Paris than I am in NYC, but 9/11 was 14 years ago and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo still loomed in the public consciousness. So yeah, I was well aware that Paris being a large city and a hotbed for controversy had that terrorism-target potential, so I was scared. And then, this past Friday, my worst fears came true.

I was luckily not in France; I was in he middle of a solo trip in Poland. But my friends were not. They were right in the middle of all the chaos; some of them even lived within walking distance of the concert venue where a hostage situation took place. Of course Social Media being the monster that it is immediately released a torrent of panic-tinged live coverage by my friends. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I was miles way, protected by the relative safety of Poland, I was immediately sucked in.

You see, it’s called terrorism for a reason; quite simply acts of terrorism are terrifying. They are not scary, scary things are the potential monsters under your 5-year-old bed. They are not worrisome, worry is something your mother feels when you haven’t texted her to tell her you arrived safely at your destination. They are fucking terrifying. Terror has an awful power that transcends borders and races and ages, in a most cliché way, it knows no bounds.

So this past Friday I was terrorized. Even though I was miles and miles away from what happened I was scared shitless. I could feel the terror transmitted by my friends who were still in Paris. I could feel the terror as I got message after message from endless family and friends asking if I was ok. I could feel the terror emanating from my parents eyes when we had the chance to Facetime and they kept murmuring over and over again how relieved they were that I wasn’t in Paris. I could feel the terror as I wrote this post, trying to hold back tears to save myself some curious polish stares. I can feel the terror as I type this now.

In a way I feel bad for feeling so affected by this attack. Because I wasn’t attacked, I wasn’t there to feel the actual life threatening terror of having a gun pointed at me or a bomb going off near me. I wasn’t even in Paris. But it did affect me, because I could have been there. I live in Paris. I was in Republique just last Wednesday, what if it happened then? I pass by Les Halles every day on my way to and from school. What if it had happened on one of those many occasions? I live in Paris, I am a part of Paris and it could have happened to me. One of my biggest fears about living in a city happened in a city that I lived in, so yes, it did terrorize me.

I cried as I talked to my parents. I cried the next day. I’ve basically been crying non-stop. I wanted out. Out of Poland, out of Paris, out of Europe. I wanted to be back home surrounded by the relative comfort of my parents and my dog Rocket, and Chipotle (of course). But even the idea of home wasn’t completely comforting because Austin is still a city, New York is definitely a city, and this awful thing that happened Friday night could just as easily have happened there. That is the most terrifying thing. I no longer felt safe because this could have happened just about anywhere I live.

Regardless, Austin, though not 100% terror-proof seemed like my best bet and I was about to book a ticket to the states and say au revoir to NYU Paris. I was literally about to give up my amazing study abroad opportunity (and $30,000 worth in tuition) to go crawl into the illusory safety of my cozy Texan bed. Then my dad did the most dad thing he could have possibly done and used my own words against me (good to know you’re listening dad).

“Remember Sama, you are the one who always says scary things happen, but you can’t live all your life in fear. You have to do what you want to do.”

Of course he (but really, me) was right. That is what I always say when my parents are apprehensive about me doing something, and it’s true. This extremely agonizing event is unfortunately not unique to Paris; it can happen anywhere. It can also happen nowhere. The thing is we’ll never know when/where/if anything like this will happen. So we can’t live life in fear that it will happen. Living in a city, especially a large city, arguably increases the chance of being a victim to terrorism. But I love cities, and I can’t give up that love because of something that may or may not happen. Not living in a vibrant, amazing, generally enthralling city out of fear of things that are not in my control is letting the bad guys win, and I’m not about to do that.

Yes, I am scared and no I don’t feel safe and I probably will be hyper vigilant at least for the rest of my time in Europe (I may even break down on the metro, it’s all possible). But now I am back in Paris and eventually I will be back in New York and I hope to eventually feel more at ease and regain the ability to enjoy these cities to their fullest extent. Because yes, cities are major targets for terror but most of the time they’re not terrifying at all- they’re just fucking awesome. These cities are resilient; they have been targeted and suffered time and time again but they always bounce back. Paris, New York, all of these cities stand for creativity, and opportunity, and freedom and rather than cower in fear and give up these important ideals like the terrorists want me to do, I’m going to put my Chucks on with Saint Laurent and live it up in the city.

Krakow, Poland /Paris, France