O Meu Diário de Coimbra

The Turks are not happy

“Bad, bad, everything bad.”

Faysal, my young Turkish friend, is having a bad day. He and Isil are still sharing a small apartment with their small dog and, worse, still sharing a bathroom and kitchen with other University of Coimbra students, some of whom, Faysal tells me, “Are not, you know, so clean.” He is chain smoking, blowing smoke hard at his large laptop, rolling his eyes in disgust, and slurping his coffee from a small cup. Praça do Comércio is mesmerizing and picturesque, and if you sit in one of its many outdoor cafes, eating tall chocolate desserts, and look up and down the length of it, in front of and behind you, and then up and down the multi-colored six- and seven-story buildings all around you, you feel part of the millennium the Praça’s been here. But the buildings, many of them — most of them — are dilapidated with cracked walls, uneven windows, bad plumbing, and it makes young Turks wonder if they made the right call leaving Istanbul.

When your neighbor keeps peeing on the bathroom floor, fuck the columns that have been here since the 12th Century.

“Maybe instead ask me what’s good,” he said, looking up.

“How’s school?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer.