Our first weekend in Istanbul...who knows what might happen?
Friday night Kristina made our leftover pasta into a casserole with some cheese and lentils thrown in for flavor. Deliciously spicy. Yum. Also real wine, not cooking wine. Real wine that a German recommended in the little neighborhood grocery store.
After that it was time to go out for the first time as a group on Istiklal. So our Turkish friend Murat brought nine Americans to a little hole in the ground bar called Darkness. This bar didn't know what hit them when nine Americans showed up exclaiming over the high prices for alcohol.
There is a legit reason for the high price on alcohol. One, a lot of it is imported. Two, Turkey is a Muslim country.
Turkey, under the memory and influence of Ataturk, is super nationalistic, which is part of the reason we see Turkish flags everywhere. And also part of the reason the ruling political party can be totally outlawed because they are being "un-Turkish." This brings up a whole nother debate though on how Turkey can be a real democracy when the current political party in power can be disbanded. But will save this discussion for another day. Anyway, because Turkey is super-nationalistic, anything imported is heavily taxed, skyrocketing the prices. Such as diet Coke aka Coca-Cola Light. The cheapest I've seen for a can of Coke is 1.50 lira and, as most of you may know, it's a requirement for me to have at least one diet Coke a day. Otherwise I got all catatonic or manic depressive, or something equally unpleasant. So imported liquor is really expensive.
To add on to that, being primarily Muslim, Turks don't have any liquor besides raki so if you want a vodka based drink...yeah. 15 lira for a drink? No thanks, I'll stick with the national beer aka Efes at 3 lira.
So we enjoyed our beer and our complimentary assortment of nuts, sitting on the tables in the street, and exclaiming over the prostitute that appeared out of a doorway a few bars down.
Okay, I know that sounds really sketchy...a prostitute, a small bar called Darkness...yeah, it sounds sketchy. But in truth, it really wasn't. I felt entirely comfortable with my Efes, friends, music pumping along the streets, and the many Turks strolling along.
After a bit Murat and his two friends took us to a club. The first we went to was fine, especially when we realized that we didn't have to pay a cover charge, but then we had to buy drinks to stay. None of us wanted to spend any more money on drinks so we left and Murat & co. took us to another club. Here, they were friends with the manager and were able to get us in for free which was awesome.
Oh techno music. Oh dancing Turks. As Kristina says, "We danced the hokey-pokey with Turks all night." Turks don't dance with their hips, but with their shoulders. So after being consumed by techno for a few hours, we decided to call it a night.
Saturday was a lazy day. After being so "culturally stimulated" so to speak over the past week and exploring a new city I was ready to recharge my batteries.
I got up a bit before noon and grabbed a pilaf below our apartment for a quick fix on food. Afterwards, Kristina and I made plans to get to work on our presentation on Dolmabahce Palace, but then we found out that you have to go on a guided tour to go inside. Scratch that idea. So after piddling around for awhile and being completely unmotivated we finally stumbled across an idea - Sirkeci Station and the Orient Express. Maybe not quite as exciting as Edward and Amanda's hanam, but still pretty good right?
We then watched one of Kelly's movies on our laptops, eventually made it to the grocery store, I grabbed a doner for supper, and then chilled out some more with everyone. After a spot of trouble with the DVD players, we eventually got a setup going so that we could all watch one of Kelly's movies on the boys' TV. Then it was bedtime.
Sunday, we woke up fairly early. We met William at 10:00 outside of our apartment to go Redbull Flugtag 2008 in Istanbul.
Ever been to one of these things? They're ridiculous.
Teams compete with various float style flying contraptions that are pushed off a ramp into a body of water and then are judged on style, flight, etc. In this case, the floats were pushed off into the Bosphorus. It was pretty entertaining what with the acts the teams put on, watching the contraptions fall apart as they left the ramp, and hearing some really unexpected songs. There were thousands of people there and somehow we pushed our way through to a fairly good spot. Unfortunately, with so many people, so much sun, and so little fresh air, I really started to feel kind of light-headed and queasy. I had made it through my water bottle and I knew I had to get out of there, otherwise, it wasn't going to be pretty. Amanda and Zoe accompanied me as I left.
Originally the plan was to just stick around in some shade. We crawled into a nearby McDonald's for some A/C though, and after a few minutes I felt much better.
The power of McDonald's will not be denied!
Amanda and I were decidedly hungry at that point and with nothing around that didn't have ridiculously long lines, we skipped on out. Zoe left to return the group and Amanda and I began our walk back toward the ferry.
Considering we took the bus to Flugtag, you know it was a long walk. But it was actually really enjoyable. We stopped once we found a restaurant. Amanda had chicken fingers that were, I believe, actually fingers. Then we stopped at a bakery to get some dessert. The owner/manager was so surprised by us and the fact that we were Americans. It's funny; when Turks ask you where you're from the don't expect America. They expect Europe. There's very few American tourists in Istanbul in comparison to Europeans. So when Amanda and I show up at this bakery, far outside normal touristy areas and say we're Americans, the Istanbullus get all excited. Amanda ordered like 2 lira worth of bakery items and then the manager gave us a bunch of stuff for free on top of that. We passed by the Fenerbahce stadium and we stopped into one of the "Fenerium" stores a little ways up. I went ahead and got Jonathan's Fenerbache scarf. Mission accomplished.
We then hopped a ferry ride and made it back to the flat where we both passed out. Everybody else eventually showed up a while later and then it was chill time.
Later we went for supper on Istiklal. The original plan had been to go to this restaurant so Edward could get sheep brain soup, but once we got there, we found that they didn't have it. Instead it appeared to be a kebab restaurant, which was perfectly fine with the rest of us that accompanied him. I was excited about kebabs because I hadn't had one yet in Istanbul. I ordered a lamb kebab and it came with rice. It was the best meal I've had yet in Turkey and I'm definitely going back there. In truth, this restaurant kind of reminded me of B*Skis, but I couldn't tell you why.
So that was my first weekend in Turkey. Aside from the queasiness at Redbull Flugtag, I'd say it was successful.
