I couldn't have stayed in a better place to fully enjoy my experience in Istanbul. I've come to consider it my own 'home', a refuge from the bustling City at night diving into Iason's extremely rich library offering insights in Greek, English, Farsi, Arabic and Turkish on the 'Near East' and the Mediterranean's history, politics, thoughts, cities and peoples. Photographs from Greece to India bring humanity through different lenses when you turn on the lamp in the living room at dark. You feel excitement and peace by staring at the reflections of the light upon the red brick wall, hundreds of books, and compelling photographs. Then you are kicked out by this same refuge to go out absorbing and living everything that surrounds you. The apartment lies a few minutes walk from the pedestrian Istiklal street, where thousends of people walk every day despite the recent events that hit the City. You have to walk uphill, cross the underpass below Tarlabasi street that cuts Iason's neighborhood where the residual Greek dwellers were forced to leave by 1964, from the more familiar, known, touristy Taksim area. Yet, they are part of the same whole despite this surgical separation of concrete. Everywhere you walk, you feel the legacy of previous communities and dwellers who inhabitated the City despite violent, silenced departures. While many have gone, others have come offering a contrast between the architecture and those who actually inhabit these places now. Walking uphill requires resistance, but walking downhill easens it. You have to fight, yet everything embraces you at the same time. You seek refuge, yet you need to go out. Places might inspire you different thoughts, including the more touristy spots, yet they are not fully tarnished, nor fake, nor dead. Everything is a contrast, not as it appears, and in between runs a vibrant life that doesn't look at its past nor at its future. It is there for you to live with its beauty and complexities, a meeting point of peoples, cultures, and cats, despite everything and everyone. And that's exactly what Iason's apartment makes you feel, viscerally part of the City (except that he has no cats). Thanks for this unique experience, by far the best so far.