Istanbul is crazy and huge and a little intimidating at first, but I'm kind of addicted to it now. As I write this, I'm listening to “Kiss Kiss,” on repeat, which was played over and over in the nargile cafés. It's kind of disappointing I guess that the only time I choose to write a blog entry is about Istanbul, which Conrad's blog has already covered. I think I'm more inspired to write about Turkey than Spain because Spain is so redundant by now (churros, Cruzcampo, bulls, flamenco, etc.).
It's funny, although I get bored of backgammon and the 4 available flavors of tea (regular, banana, apple, and sage), much more easily than the Turks do (they don't), and I surely spent enough hours waiting for Conrad to get back from work in the nargile café to be sick of it, and though I had no intentions of going back after the waiter asked Izzie for my msn (bizarre), I find myself missing the ambience of the cafes and the social scene in general quite a lot, as well as Conrad and Leyla and their friends. Conrad and Leyla were great hosts. I must say Leyla is possibly the best host I have ever experienced. She is probably one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met. Good choice, Conrad. They had to work most of the time I was there, but the time we had to go out was really fun. I also really appreciate that Conrad was willing to go back to the tourist sites with me.
I will miss deeply the spinach and cheese squares, chocolate and strawberry covered waffles, and banana tea. There is something very exciting about Istanbul that I can't really explain at all. I had been told by a British sailor last year (I spoke to many of those in France), that of all the cities in the world he visited, Istanbul was his favorite. He said it was a magical place, and had a gaze in his eyes when he talked of it as though he were drifting away on an overpriced carpet sold in the Grand Bazaar.
I am so jaded that it's hard for me to be instantly impressed by something, besides bean bag chairs. At first I was like, ok, Hagia Sophia, no big deal. But I do know how to appreciate ambience and after a while certain things grow on me. Anyway, Istanbul grew on me.
I got there on Friday night and met up with Conrad and Leyla and we went to the nargile cafe where I drank banana tea, and sage tea, and played backgammon. On Saturday we met up with their English teaching friends from the U.S. and Canada and we had Turkish food in a restaurant next to the Bosphorous, the strait that divides the European and Asian sides of Turkey. Then we went to a fort where we walked up many stairs and saw views of the water. We ate waffles with caramel, chocolate, strawberries, and bananas. Then Conrad and I went to this crazy mall that looks like the Guggenheim and had the most expensive coffee you can imagine in a Viennese cafe. It's actually not the most expensive coffee, because I later learned that it's almost the same in Starbucks and various other locations. We went back to Leyla's apartment and hung around watching The Daily Show and eating. It shocks me that in some ways, Turkey is so much more with it than Spain. Like, on the 6 whole channels we get in Spain, I can't even express to you how painful the availability is. The Spanish just don't seem to understand what television is supposed to be, much less do they know what The Daily Show is. We had Turkish food for dinner in a restaurant with a friend of Conrad's who looks like Jack Black. I don't remember his name, but he is rather funny. We went to a bar on the top floor of a building with him and Theresa, an American teacher, where we had lots of alcohol and creepy Turks stared at us for hours.
On Sunday morning, Leyla made a huge breakfast while Conrad slept off his hangover. Afterwards, Conrad and I went to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and the underground cistern. We walked from the old part to the new part across the bridge and went back to the nargile café where we drank more banana tea and played more backgammon with his Turkish friends.
On Monday, Conrad had to work so I went to the palace and the Grand Bazaar on my own. Once Leyla finished work, we met at Starbucks and I had a white chocolate mocha. It probably seems very stupid of me to go to Starbucks while in Turkey, but as it is on Istiklal in Taksim Square, it is a practical meeting spot, and also the nearest one to me in Cadiz is 2 hours away in Seville. I have learnt these words in Turkish: O.K., Turkish bath, white chocolate mocha, tea, women, one, taxi, and funicular. This can basically get me a lot of things I want with the ability to get me to them, assuming that coffee, tea, and Turkish baths are all reachable by either a funicular or a taxi. Then we went to a cafe to drink Turkish coffee (yes, right after Starbucks, to get the proper juxtaposition of our Turkish and American cultures), and this guy read our fortunes according to how the sand and the coffee grains designated themselves on the coffee cup once we finished drinking them and turned them upside down.
It is a tradition in Turkey that I like the idea of a lot since I like anything that has to do with coffee. In general, the emphasis on coffee and tea in Turkey is probably one of the top reasons I like it so much. Although I don't like the taste of Turkish coffee; it's too strong. It was hard to understand the man who read my fortune as his English was poor. It kind of reminded me of my job.
So then we met up with Conrad and went to a noodle restaurant that was basically Asian fusion and I had chicken katsu and vegetable juice. Then we went to an Irish bar, because it was St. Patrick's Day. We met up with some random people and there was this crazy woman woman who had slept with a Turkish guy with a British accent. He was trying to get away from her, and she told us he was her future husband and then he made a joke about it and she threw beer on his face. It was pretty funny and made the holiday all the better. As we left we saw her hanging on to some other man. Leyla wanted to warn him but I think it is a good way for men to learn the consequences of being so terribly slutty. Turkish men are kind of known for this. They are also known for cheating on their girlfriends a lot, and like to brag about it. Meanwhile Turkish women are expected to be celibate or else they are considered damaged goods. It is pretty extreme but yet I can't say I trust American men that much more.
Tuesday, I went to Istanbul Modern, by myself. I looked at Turkish modern art, which was cool, because a lot of it was influenced by western painting, for ex. by people who had studied in France, but it was of Turkish landscapes and people, and there was a part on the bottom where someone had hung all these books, installation art, like from the ceiling, so it was a canopy of books on strings. There was a piece where someone took layers of gauze and made it look like two people in a bedroom with the bed and it looked 3-D with all the gauze layers. Following, I went to Galata Tower and saw the panorama of Istanbul. In the night, I met up with Leyla and we sat on the bean bag chairs in the nargile cafes. Then we met up with Conrad and went back to the same one Conrad always goes to and his friend Izzie and his other Turkish friends showed up and we played more backgammon and they smoked hookah and we drank lots of tea and orchid milk drink. The Turks never get bored of hookah and backgammon and tea. It's so absurd. If I had to pick one drink that I always drank, and one thing I always smoked, and one game that I always played, it probably wouldn't be those. It would probably be white mochas, and maybe it would be backgammon, but it could also be Scrabble or Geschenkt or Taboo, and we won't discuss anything to be smoked.
On Wednesday, I did nothing because the palace closed earlier than expected. So I waited for Conrad in the nargile café and then we drank tea and played backgammon and smoked hookah. That's apparently what I did all week. On Thursday, I went to a Turkish bath. It was a really crazy experience because there were multinational naked women all around. You lie on a hot stone circle and then a fat Turkish woman scrubs you down and washes you and pours water on you. Then you hang around bathing yourself. Then because I turned off Conrad's phone and forgot the PIN I had to get to the place we were meeting, Tribeca, a New York style bagel restaurant, for game night. This was an adventure because I only knew that I was near Levent so I searched the address on the internet and went around asking people where it was, and ended up following some Turkish guy on a bus who took me to it, but it was really far, so I asked them if there were any others in Istanbul and they said there were 4, so they gave me the address of the actual one and I took a taxi there. I ate bagels and iced coffee milkshakes and played Ingenious with Conrad and his Turkish friends.
There were a lot of things I realized that I had wanted to do that I didn't get around to.
I had to leave on Friday. It sucked. I didn't want to leave very much, because I realized after the past few weeks, of having visitors and visiting people - all friends from high school or college – that I really miss being around people that I care about and have known for years. What was great about being there was that it had the comfort of home, because I was hanging out with someone I know from home, but still the escape of being far away in an exotic place without the stress that comes with being in New York.
