Subject:   [adventure!] Turkish women and Russian ladies

Date:   4/11/2004 1:05:41 PM

 

 

 

Oh Istanbul. Ohhhhh Istanbul.

 

I arrived on the 12-somehow-becomes-15-hour `sleepless night` train from

Bulgaria yesterday morning and found a hostel. One of my Turkish friends,

Melike, of the infamous University of Illinois Turkish crowd had warned a

couple of her friends that I would be in town, so I gave one of them

(Cigdem) a call. She said we should meet in front of the British consulate.

You may recall that is one of the two buildings that were bombed recently

which you might think would make stick out in some peoples`minds here, but

as I tried to make my way over there, I asked 4 taxi drivers and 5 police

officers and none of them knew where it was. One of the cops put me on an

underground tram that he thought might take me closer, but which only

succeeded in completely disorienting me by bringing me to a different part

of the city without allowing me to keep any sense of where I was coming

from. After a 3 minute phone call from a telephone place that cost me 8

Canadian dollars (!) I was able to find Melike`s friend Cigdem only 30

minutes late. She had brought her cousin, sister and nephew, all really

wonderful people, and we had a great lunch in a cool hidden restaurant

called the Lemon Garden which they explained, was not traditional Turkish

food at all. Then we saw a famous Turkish actor in the restaurant. He was

waiting in line for the toilet *right* behind me!!! Like, oh my god!!!

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Taksim neighbourhood,

which has a lot of shops and a LOT of people walking around. Very nice

place to look at all the pretty Turkish people. Then we had a coffee and

some kind of desert that was sort of a gelatinous cakey thing covered with

chocolate sauce. Yum! They were headed out to a nice restaurant for a

birthday party and then maybe out for some drinks. I decided I should

probably save some money and go back to the hostel and sleep. Istanbul is

considerably more expensive than the places I`ve been recently, and I hadn`t

slept in a couple of days. Besides, I didn`t want to be in a smokey place.

 

Then the plans changed. After smokýng some apple tobaco from a hookah thing

called a shish (yes, Jason "where`s the goddamn non-smoking section in this

place?" Morris smoked tobaco!) I proceded to not sleep and go out for

expensive beers in a fabulous discotheque with people from the hostel. The

night was exactly like what you might think a night in a fabulous club might

have been like. Great music, decent beer, and so much dancing (yes, I

always dance when I smoke) that I am almost certain I fractured a rib[1].

It hurts to breath. It was SO completely worth it!

 

When they closed the disco, half of the people I had arrived with had

already left in pairs, and the other half were pairing up in various

configurations, so I decided to walk back to the hostel alone. Istanbul is

a pretty big city, and home to approximately half of the population of

Earth, and it has dark alleys but, as the smart guy I didn`t think I was,

before I left for the night I put everything from my wallet into the hotel

safe and just left with about 70 bucks in my pocket, so the only thing

anyone could take from me was some money (which I had been exchanging for

beer all night), and my kidneys which were in rough shape at that point

anyway.

 

I set off in search of the hostel with no clue about which direction to walk

aside from the wonderful smell of kebab meat roasting. Good enough. I

picked a direction and walked along eating my kebab and smiling. The smile

was my mistake. A drunk guy with a goatee (oh yeah, I finally decided to

shave off the sides of my beard) is not always an approachable figure. But

a drunk guy with a goatee who is smiling like a fool is a friendly figure.

 

Two young guys came up and asked me where I was from, which is usually code

for `how can I get your money?`. They said they were headed to a bar and I

should come with them for a drink. I thought to myself ... hmm ... this

sounds like a bad idea. But then I thought ... hey, I have no money and

these people can clearly see that my kidneys are overworked. They they said

they would buy the beer. Some people may have seen that as an obvious red

flag.

 

I followed them into what looked kind of like a strip club, but also kind of

like a very tacky thai food restaurant. A lot of pink. We were seated in a

booth and immediately joined by three Russian ladies who ... ahem ... worked

there. They were very nice girls. We bought them drinks too. I guess.

 

After about half a beer, they insisted I go up to the dance floor, which was

empty, and dance with them. The three girls and one of the Turkish guys

came up with me and that`s when I had the distinct feeling that the other

guy was putting something in my beer. I told them I was tired and sat down.

They returned and then started making toasts. I clinked my glass and put

it back down without drinking, and then told them I was going home. They

insisted that it would be rude to leave now, and that I should stick around.

After some more insistence on my part, they asked for the bill.

 

Now, in Turkey they use the Turkish Lira and one Canadian dollar is worth

one million Lirasi. So it`s not uncommon to see a lot of zeros on a bill.

The bill for our drinks had a lot of zeros. It was 1,009,000,000 (one

billion nine million) lirasi [2]. That`s $1009 Canadian. I laughed. In my

wallet I found 20 million ($20 CDN). I laughed again. The owner came over

and showed me the menu. One beer 30 million. One whiskey 45 million. The

other guys weren`t laughing. They were very serious and asking me how I was

going to pay for this. They said they would split the bill 50-50 and one of

them pulled out a credit card. I told the owner he was going to have to

call the police (I couldn`t have afforded the phone call).

 

Eventually they got around to asking me how much money I had and I handed

over my wallet. They searched it and found the 20 million. I also offered

them 2 Slovenian postcard stamps in case they were headed that way. They

weren`t.

 

After a big show that involved them actually charging 545 million on the

other guy`s credit card, I gave them the 20 million and left. Luckily, they

never actually looked in my pockets, where I had enough money to get a cab

ride home. When I got out of the cab it was 6:30, but I was too tired to

stay up for the sunrise.

 

Anyway, Istanbul is a truly unique place. Giant mosques, a nice park with

lots of people lying around picnicking, great food. Drinks with the Russian

prostitutes can get a bit on the expensive side, but overall a great city.

I`ll write more later as I will be here for a few more days.

 

Have fun!

jay

 

 

[1] Those of you who have seen me dance might recall that I tend to look

like Bill Cosby having a seizure.

 

[2] Scott, I`m pretty sure this beats the Happy Hour record at Boltini.