romantic evening in istanbul

A Romantic Evening in Istanbul

Imagine the following: you are greatly in love with a young woman who

is 20 years old (you are 23). You love each other to death and know

that the only thing you want to do with the rest of your life... is to

spend it together. Imagine that you both believe that the two of you

were made for each other.

Imagine that the girl is Turkish and you are Dutch. Imagine that the

love you feel for each other makes it possible to have a relationship

while the two of you live thousands kilometers away from each other -

and you can only visit each other a couple of times, a couple of

weeks, per year. Imagine that, although it is difficult, extremely

difficult and that, although your heart is broken every time you say

goodbye to each other, you can overcome all the pain in the world

because your love for each other is so big.

Imagine that.

Now imagine that, one night, on Tuesday August 7, 2007, the two of you

go to a place in Istanbul called Ortak�y (also see image above to see

what it looks like by daylight). You are the Dutch young man. You have

something in your pocket: a small, very small, box. The two of you go

to Ortak�y walking hand in hand. You kiss the girl you love on her

forehead and on her cheek. You look her in her eyes and tell her how

much you love her and how happy she makes you.