strolling through the settlement

Last saturday, I went for a walk to a place I was long before. I went there to find a way out of the airless metropol labyrinths, a way out of my head and hectic asks. I found it, on the asian side of Istanbul, next to the sea, sitting so still and smiling. A plain sight of life. Medium houses with medium roads next to the medium sea. You can tell it's a place for families by looking at the balconies, humbly decorated and tidy. Flower pots and funny toys, funny dogs... A handful of habitants walk ever so slowly among the streets, no rushing. It makes you think that they know how to live, and how to make a living. It slows you down, makes you sit down on a doorway, watch carefully, and notice. As you watch, there comes a traveler boy with bright eyes and a large duffel bag on his back, and he's seriously holding a real Gandalf stick. He moves closer, in a foreign language, asks you where he happens to be and which way he should walk to cross over to Greece, which happens to be more or less 500km's away. You tell him that, and the dangers ahead, but he only hears the "can"s and ignores the "not"s, bids you goodbye. You sit there for a long time staring, between the settled life and the traveler, with a confused mind.