when the fog swallowed my sneakers and i forgot why i came to diyarbakır

i just checked and it's... there right now, hope you like that kind of thing. 4.02°C at 3am, humidity clinging like a drunk cousin who won’t let go of your arm. the air didn’t feel cold - it felt heavy, like someone dropped a wet wool blanket over the whole city and forgot to pick it up. my boots sank into the mud near the citadel and i swear, the stones underneath were whispering. not in a creepy way. more like, "we’ve seen empires rise and crumble, and you? you’re just here for the street food."

someone told me that the best baklava in town is sold out of a van by the old synagogue - 3am, no sign, just a guy in a beanie and an espresso machine that shouldn’t work. link: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293974-d139889-Reviews-Diyarbakir_Citadel-Diyarbakir_Diyarbakir_Province.html. i didn’t find the van. i found a lady in a purple scarf handing out warm simit and telling me in broken english, "you look like you lost your phone, your heart, or both. here. eat." she didn’t take payment. i cried a little. or maybe it was the fog.

the neighbors? if you get bored, mardin’s minarets are whispering from 60k north, and half the city’s ghosts already have better Instagram than you. link: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Diawarbakir+street+art&find_loc=Diyarbakir. i spent three hours trying to photograph a mural of a woman with a head of vines. three当地人 told me she was a historical baker who fed rebels during the Ottoman collapse. one of them pissed in the alley beside me while explaining it. no apology. just nodded. "art is dead," he said, "but the vines? they remember."

"they say if you sleep here, you dream in Kurdish, Turkish, and Aramaic at once. then wake up confused. and hungry."

"the moisture? it’s not rain. it’s the Tigris crying. over deforestation, relics, and the guy who turned the old spice market into a TikTok studio."

img src="https://api.unsplash.com/search/photos?query=diyarbakir+citadel&w=1080&q=80" alt="" width="100%">

i didn’t go to the museum. i didn’t take the guided tour. i sat under a broken awning eating chickpea stew from a plastic bowl and watched a local businessman argue with a pigeon about optics. (the pigeon won.)

this place doesn’t want you to "experience" it. it wants you to get lost on purpose. the streetlights flicker like they’re running out of patience. the temperature? felt like my lungs forgot how to inflate.

someone near the late-night kebab stall whispered "don’t tip too much. they’ll think you’re rich. then they’ll invite you to a wedding you didn’t know you were invited to." link: https://localboard.diyarbakir.com/thread/3784-what-to-do-at-4am-if-youre-not-sleeping

i didn’t sleep. i just stared at the clouds. they looked like old manuscripts. forgot my camera. couldn’t have taken the shot anyway - my lens was fogged up. again.

so. yeah. cette ville doesn’t care if you come back. but if you do? bring a second pair of socks. and maybe a translator who doesn’t mind crying at 3am.