Araz Gholami

Although a little over ten days have passed since the shock I experienced in Ankara, today I can say that I’m fully stabilized and everything is back on track. The work environment is extremely energetic and ideal. I managed to rent a decent apartment near the company. On weekends, I do an extra day at work to ensure the project meets its deadlines and to keep myself from being idle. Even though there’s a lot to do, the commute between Ankara and Istanbul has completely drained my energy, and I need some time to focus on nothing but work.

Similar to my first days in Ankara, when I wasn’t sure if everything had returned to normal and hadn’t unpacked my suitcases, here too I haven’t taken anything out of my suitcases except the essentials. They remain in the corner of the apartment. Contrary to what I had imagined before, living out of a suitcase is truly exhausting and difficult.

The heating system in my new apartment doesn’t work properly yet, and despite the landlord promising to fix it, nothing has happened so far. When I’m out of bed, the cold is fully noticeable and uncomfortable. For this reason, I prefer to stay at home for now, except when I need to sleep.

April 23 is a holiday, and by adding a day off, I can stretch it into four days of free time. I hope I can go back to Iran soon. I seriously and urgently need to be with my family, even for a short period, especially since I missed Nowruz and Chaharshanbe Suri. The challenges of this trip are already presenting themselves: the lack of return flights on Iranian airlines (and the astronomical prices of Turkish Airlines), and the relocation of Atatürk Airport to a new airport 50 kilometers from my home and workplace, make planning this trip difficult. All outbound flights from Iranian airlines leave at 5 a.m., and considering the need to arrive three hours early plus a minimum two-hour commute, I might need to add another day off, and I’m not sure it will be approved. Nevertheless, I hope that after the series of good events that helped me recover from the Ankara shock, this trip will also go smoothly and not leave me frustrated.