An Hour at AŞTİ

It was our very first lesson when our instructor of “Introduction to Industrial Engineering” assingned our first homework as to read a book of Allain de Botton called “A Week at the Airport”, and then to visit “AŞTİ” which is the main bus station in Ankara, and finally to write an essay alike the book.
To be honest, what comes to my mind in the first place was I didn’t need to visit AŞTİ in order to do some observations. I had spent my one and a half year in the hall of there waiting for my bus going to Istanbul. I was so familiar with the scene of the people at the station. Some of them sit and wait for their buses quietly just like me. Some of them hurry up to catch the bus. Some salesmen offer you to buy some coffee or tea, and I don’t know how to define the “çığırtkan”s. They try to convince you to choose their firm if you haven’t bought your ticket yet, and this is certainly forbidden in AŞTİ. Each five minutes you can hear the announcement not to accredit those “çığırtkan”s.
I was so sure that I had already had enough experiences to explain life in AŞTİ, the place which always reminds me my separation from my family and Istanbul. There is no words which can define my feelings when our bus from Istanbul approches to the station, when I get of the bus and look for a cab in order to leave there immediately. One can ask me why I associate this place only with separation since it is also the place where I take the bus and go to my home but still with the thought of that I will return the place ultimately.
My friends asked me when I had time to go to AŞTİ. They said we could take photos and include them into our homework in order to be more visiual just like in the book. So I decided to go with them. When I go to AŞTİ, I always prefer to go there with a taxi, otherwise it is really hard to carry the luggage, because a public bus or “dolmuş” from METU drops you across the street and you need to carry your luggage to downstairs and use the underpass. But this time I was not carrying any luggage, and it was a pleasure of mine to use the subway to go to AŞTİ.

There is an escalator (which does not have stairs) through the underpass which I always find useless. It is obvious that an escalator (I mean with stairs this time) is needed instead of the long and upright stairs, and it is also obvious that people are tortured to be forced to carry their luggage downstairs. Anyway, we took out our camera and started to take photos. Immediately we were warned by a security guard that it is forbidden to take photos in AŞTİ. We tried to explain that the photos were just for our homework, but he insisted on that we should have permission for it. Of course we didn’t listen to him and took some photos under our coat.

We went on our way and entered the platform of outgoing passengers. Some “çığırtkan”s immediately started to offer us cheap tickets for the next bus which would departure in fifteen minutes. One thinks how adventurous would it be to be going somewhere very far away from your ordinary life, and how it is close to you, but suddenly realizes how he/she is stuck in his/her real life.

As I was travelling the station I understood I was right. Again passengers were sitting, waiting or hurrying up and salesmen and “çığırtkan”s were on their business. The only thing what was changed was my feelings towards the place, though. I was not a passenger this time, I was an observer. So I decided that the situation forms the perception about the place. If you are taking a bus which will bring you together with the beloved ones forever, it can be a heaven and even you can ignore the upright stairs. But if you are a student who is remained in a dilemma between two lives in two cities, it is worst than hell.