Notes concerning my first day in Istanbul on my second day in Istanbul…
Quite a city. Mieke and myself are staying not too far from the Grand Bazaar. The odd part about this area is that there are so few women on the streets. The men can be a bit greasy and forward, but people seem to be generally peaceful.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Once we left, I decided to get a SIM card from this independent cell phone store directly across from the Barin Hotel. The first dude that I dealt with was pretty cool. He kept addressing me as “my friend,” which for me was an odd combination of flattery, hospitality, deceit and treachery. I was originally quoted 35tl for this SIM card, but by the time his colleague got done activating the 1gb plan, the price had risen to 85tl. I really didn’t give a fuck; once I did the conversion, I decided that €33 isn’t really a big deal to me. So I said peace to my friend and we went on about our vacation business, fully equipped with 3G and the power of Google Maps. The phone number they gave me was 539 469 02 12, which I suppose is as good as any other number.

We decided to walk towards the Beyoglu district. I didn’t think it appeared to be too far from where we were. In route, we passed through the Grand Bazaar, which is truly an incredible place. I was impressed with some of the goods offered, primarily at the goods that weren’t of a pinchbeck nature. One also has to admire the architecture, as the Bazaar is approaching its 650th birthday. The only annoying bit is having to constantly reject the aggressive salesmen as politely as possible. “Aggressive” doesn’t mean rude, however. Everyone is very friendly, but you can tell that they’re doing their best to make money. One can’t knock the hustle, I just abhor being treated like a tourist, even when I am a tourist.

Walking through this city, I remembered the whole ordeal a few centuries ago when the Dutch lost mad money by investing in tulips, which are of Turkish origin. I then began to think, “How in the fuck did the Dutch appropriate tulips?” Man… Dutch people will appropriate anything from a flower, to all your spices, to your civil rights, to sneaker culture to hip-hop. I respect originality.

Beyoglu is incredible. It’s also up a steep-ass hill. Can’t lie; after being in the flat-ass Netherlands for what seems to have been a Nazi’s stint in hell, hills have regained their novelty, especially in regards to my shins, thighs and buttocks. Not a bad thing, just a thing.

We went to this place that Sotu the Traveler recommended to me for breakfast. Van Kahvalti Evi at Defterdar Yokusu 52a. It was lekker as fuck and the service was just lovely. They honestly give you way too much food, which made me recall this article in the in-flight magazine detailing how there is a government sanctioned movement to encourage people to quit wasting bread and the best ways to incorporate stale bread into dishes. The gentlemen taking our order gave me a Turkish coffee on the house, both of which I truly love. I had a Turkish coffee last year in London, so I was already familiar with the fact that one should not drink the coffee grinds at the bottle of the cup. We bid adieu to the place and continued up the hill towards Taskim Square.

I was expecting to see the 1968 LA shootout between US and the Black Panthers upon arriving at Taskim Square, but instead of hullabaloo, we just saw a lot of people carrying shopping bags and relaxing in the park. We did the same for a bit. After awhile we decided to venture throughout the area. Mieke wanted to go one direction; I put my foot down and we went in another direction, towards what seemed to be deprivation and poverty in its primal form. On Google Maps it is referred to as “Cukur Mh.” Most of the buildings in the area were being demolished, but the least dilapidated of the buildings did have some tenants in them. If I had to guess, I would say that they were squatting these places. As we delved deeper into the area, we happened upon these three teenagers that were relaxing on a funky couch that was somehow in an alleyway. They, like pretty much everyone, were completely captivated by Mieke’s admittedly awesome tattoos. One of the teenagers comes over grabs her arm and begins rating them all in Turkish as his friends agree or disagree. He rubbed the ones he liked as if he was checking to see if they were fake and would rub off. He asks where she got them done, Mieke replies “Amsterdam,” which isn’t exactly accurate, but it’s the best answer possible considering that there was a major language barrier between us all. Then the teenager asks me in Turkish, “Do you have any tatts?” No, I couldn’t actually understand this, but game recognizes game. I showed him my ABSNFC logo that resides on my right forearm, to which the teenager playfully slaps me in the chest and blurts out the Turkish equivalency of “Get the fuck outta here!” We all laugh boisterously and then head our separate ways.

We descended a bit further into this area, which for all intents and purposes was a ghetto. There were a lot of children running around, creating toys from things I’d consider to be junk. The clothes hanging betwixt buildings seemed like a UN collection of poor peoples’ representative flags. I peered into one building that had no door and there was an African fellow in there just sitting on a crate and staring at the ground. We eventually made our way back to the commercial area and both were a bit in awe of what we just saw. I thought it to be enough poverty for the day. I’m not one of those Greenpeace people, so I don’t really get any sort of reward from being in this sort of area. It’s actually extremely saddening to me, and I find it hard not to empathize with folks. I believe that, even though folk are trapped within extreme poverty, they know how to enjoy life. It isn’t right of me to stare or to judge.

As we ascended from the hood, we walked past a police station. The police were readying themselves for the protestors. Evidently, the revolution doesn’t take place in the daytime. I’m guessing people are at work or it’s just too damned hot and humid to be changing the course of society. We took the long path down the hill, ending up near the Bosphorus river, enjoying both the views and the smell of fresh water.

We decided to take a cab home. It was hot as Hades, and neither of us felt like making the hour-or-so walk it would take to get back to the hotel. The fellow that picked us up was a relatively young dude that constantly had his left hand out of the driver’s side window, unconsciously fiddling with some prayer beads. I showed him the card for the Barin Hotel, and he jetted off.

“How much will it be?” I asked the dude.
“One second,” and he proceeds to call someone, speak in Turkish, and then confirms with us in English that it will be 25tl. This is when we were introduced to the Istanbul 500, which is how I will forevermore refer to the traffic in this metropolitan area. It seems that the driving etiquette in Turkey is to pass everyone, and I do mean everyone, and then switch lanes as closely as possible to the car in the lane in which you are entering, all while not being bothered with the nuisance of having to activate one’s directional signals. In route the cab driver told us that he loved us both and shook my hand and kissed Mieke’s. I wasn’t sure if this was a true display of agape love or if dude knew that we would die before we reached the Barin Hotel. After he told us that he loved us, he informed us that the trip would actually be 30tl. Whatever bruh, I just hope you know that if we die before we reach the hotel, we can’t pay you. Upon arrival to our hotel, we discovered that he only had a 10tl for change, so we just said “Fuck it,” and handed our lover 40tl.

After a nap and a shower, we ventured back into Istanbul with the intentions of waking to a restaurant called Antakya. After about 30 minutes of walking we discovered that we were walking in the wrong direction; being that eating as soon as possible was the prime directive, we again opted upon a cab.

After having a cab hailed for us by a street parking attendant, we told the driver we wanted to go to Antakya. While driving, the cabbie says he knows of an excellent fish restaurant that was very close. He reaches into his glove department and pulls out a laminated trio-fold flyer that displays a happening restaurant with a gorgeous view. We agreed to alter our plans and got dropped off at this restaurant, Zorba something or another. A doorman took us to an elevator that went up about three floors and, upon the opening of the elevator doors, revealed a completely empty restaurant with an amazing view. We sat down and were handed some laminated menus with prices precariously etched in with dry-erase markers. It was at this point that Mieke and I looked at each other and realized that we were getting fucked. It was also at this point that the men running the place brought out a bunch of appetizers for us to choose from, from which we choose anchovies, olives and some other thing with eggplant in it. Like idiots (or tourists) we ordered from the menu. As time went on, we decided what should we do? Just leave, endure the scam or what? Neither of us felt right getting shafted as we were, so we just paid our bill and took the fish with us. 200tl later, we learned a valuable lesson and decided that we would not take any further advice from cab drivers, nor would we frequent any place with laminated menus and dry-erase prices ever again. In life. I must say though, throughout this entire ordeal everyone involved was incredibly polite and was duly armed with a perpetual smile.

We said “Fuck it,” and walked over to Beyoglu; this walk took almost an hour, but it was cool. We decided to sit in front of American Audio and check out this €50 worth of gourmet fish, which revealed itself to be $11 worth of fried fish from the SW harbor in DC. Whatever. Live and learn. We left the fish for the many stray cats that roam the city. I really hope they enjoyed it.

After that we wandered up to and down Istiklal street. We wanted food, but it seemed that we missed our cut-off point for kebabs in a restaurant, so we had a quick beverage at an amazing bookstore/restaurant/bar called Ada. We got a few tips from our very cool waiter who told us that the bars and clubs were about 300 meters down the street. He also warned that we should be careful, as the cops around Taskim Square got unruly during the evening. We said thank you to the gentleman and began our 300 meter quest up Istiklal in search of fun and shitty European techno music.

Istiklal reminded me of Assisi in Italy. Lots of people hanging out on the streets and also in the clubs and bars, so there was something for whomever was in the vicinity. Some stores that sold clothing or other goods such as books were also open, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what stores were open and which ones were not.

Everything was fairly pleasant until we saw the throngs directly in front of us transform into a tidal wave of calamity, coupled with screams from women and angry yelling from men. Wow. There really is a revolution happening here. This swarm of people was rapidly approaching, so me and the lady reacted with the split-second instincts of MacGyver and Dog the Bounty Hunter. We dipped down the first alleyway to the left until we were clear of the hullabaloo. In a state somewhere between excited and frightened, we decided that we had had enough and it was time to go back to the telly. The path that we were forced to take led us to a pretty cool record store called De Form Music, which I intend on checking out later in the week. I do so love when happenstance proves advantageous.

After descending the hill, in the interests of unwinding, we happened upon a bunch of hookah venues located near both the Bosphorus river and Istanbul Modern. There seemed to be about 20 places dedicated to hookah, backgammon and tea. Logic would tell you this was a case of market saturation, but your own eyes would reveal that this is what a large percentage of the party people in Istanbul want to do. The vanilla smoke was timely and tasty.

After smoking hookah we caught a cab from the exact same place where we caught one earlier. After traveling the exact same path back to the Barin Hotel our driver tells us the cost is 12tl. It was here that I confirmed that even when getting shafted as a tourist in Istanbul, people are going to be especially polite. Such is life…