Twin Cities (Countries?)

Roma and Istanbul. Or Italy and Turkey.
Traveling in space and time at the same time. Overwhelming history.
This travel starts in "Greece away from Greece", in Ephesus or Miletus and ends, a few millennia later, in "Greece away from Greece" again, i.e. in Constantinopolis.
This is one Greek travel that does not need to take the traveler to Greece.
Start in Asia Minor (present day Turkey), then go to Roma, and have Constantinopolis as the grand finale.
Feeling as ants at the feet of History as the scale of time is so enormous. The brutal weight of time shatters the illusion that we can change things, make a difference or just an impression.
You let yourself sink in time and time will soon feel like quicksand. It engulfs you and everyone else; screams, wars, inventions, works of art spiral downwards – scribbles in the sand. Emperors and artists, great pontiffs and brilliant scientists are all equally turned to dust in the bins of time.
An ideal equal opportunity employer, Time is. Nobody escapes it and no one gets preferential treatment.
Time connects not people but cultures. People are peons on a table too big to see even one's own little square borders. Our time is so short that we have no idea what time is up to. From our timely cubicles events seems random, randomness and chaos seem to reign.
Yet you travel to places connected in time and Time's master plan unfolds in the front of your mesmerized eyes. Greek values die where they are born only to be resurrected in Roma. Roman ideals die in Roma but are reborn in Constantinopolis.
And so it goes: it is the same spiral of time which grinds individuals to dust yet filters ideas for posterity.

© Copyright Adrian Preda, M.D.