“It’s Saturday night, I guess that makes it all right.”
After spending a leisurely day at home eating, drinking tea and walking along the water by Hanife’s house we decided to get dressed up and head to Taksim area for dinner. We had fun trying on different outfits for each other and debating what to wear, well, Hanife tried on different outfits, I only have one dress so there wasn’t much debate.
Most Turkish people work a six day week so Saturday night is their only night to go out without having to work the next day. As we drove along the Anatolian coast towards the Golden Horn we passed by dozens and dozens of families making BBQs in the parks along the water. Most of these are the more traditional families in which the women are covered and girls my own age have two or three children.
I was clutching my seat the entire time as Hanife expertly and agressively weaved through traffic and assertively inched in front of neighboring cards at merging areas. Taksim Square is the epicenter for the European side of Istanbul. Unlike Sultanmehmet with it’s historic palaces, tea gardens and mosques, this part of Istanbul is young, hip and modern. The nightlife is cenetered around Istiklal Cadessi which is pedestrian only streeting running about for about one mile and chalk full of clothing stores, music stores, bars, cafes, restaurants and street vendors selling everything from corn on the cob to super glue. Since it was Saturday night the place was packed and it took all our strength to walk down the street without losing our purses or each other.
We had dinner at trendy “360″, a restaurant/bar on top of a building with a 360 view of the city. It was in one of those unmarked buildings so that you feel very coy when you slip in the door, ascend in the ancient elevator and arrive in a very eloquent rooftop terrace. We dined on Turkish wine, warm chestnut salad, duck and pad thai noodles!
During the dinner we could see fireworks erupting throughout the city aknowleding weddings and club openings.
Yikes, the tan line!
After dinner we wound through the busy streets looking into busy cafes and bars and browsing the street vendor’s goods. It was very strange because we passed by many bars that were full of young men, not a woman in a sight. Hanife was not able to explain what they one single gender places. There were plenty of young Turkish women in the streets wearing the latest cotton shirt/dresses in bright reds and greens and oranges…just not inside the bars.
Between the warm tea, ice cold beers, ice-cream, milk pudding, mussels, kebab and raki that the shops are offering it was hard to choose a place to settle. We found a garrishly decorated type of pub where there were two musicans playing live music on top of recorded tracks. They had a Gypsy Kings type of vibe and the crowd were “polite” people as Hanife would say. I drank some type of cocktail advertised as a Martini that tasted more like Nestea and the moved onto the Raki, the anise flavored liquor that turns milky white when combined with water.
Hanife started dancing and showing off her Latin dancing skills and after a couple songs of me protesting she finally got me up the dance floor. We were whirling around and it was so much fun! I’m usually quite shy about this kind of thing but the crowd was warm and encouaging and the bind was playing special songs just for us. It was really exciting!!
holy shit, a girl as tan as you should have two or three children already.
mashahalla Hanife