Exuse me where are you from?..A visit to Istanbul

As I boarded the plane I noticed that slight twinge in my throat as if I were just edging to come down with a cold so I loaded up with vitamins and at every chance I could get I drank orange juice and water. By the time we arrived to the Istanbul airport I had already had that initial sneeze that gives pomp and circumstance to a true cold. However, I am not going to complain because the cold I caught during the time it took to get from point A to point B, was not one of these head colds that deprive you from tasting. Catching a snot attack just would have been pure cruelty.


I tried to eat as many diverse things as possible (I did not find fried lamb balls, a true disappointment): everything from meze (like tapas, the fried Albanian liver was delish and is never to be confused with fried liver of an Albanian) to Gozleme (pancakes) to the famed Turkish delight (love the rose). We even dined at an authentic Ottoman restaurant that prizes itself on historic Sultan cuisine http://www.asitanerestaurant.com/English/index.php.

However, along with the food, it were the key moments of the trip that I am about to tell you about that have made it memorable.


Amidst the snow flakes we visited many of the must-see tourist sites. One of which was the Aya Sophia. Very beautiful. As I was looking around, I spotted someone familiar. I thought "holy kebap" I know him from somewhere. He is famous, yes. It is Vincent Van Gogh. I knew you wouldn't believe me so we stalked him covertly and took his picture. And in case you are wondering, didn't he cut off his ear? Yes, he did but it was the other one.

To warm up a bit we went to the Haman. This is a lovely place where they claim to bath and massage you. It seemed innocuous when we entered. A sweet foreign girl greeted us at the door and gladly took our money. Men and women are separated. You are to disrobe and enter the bathing area where you lay down on a heated marbled surface.

As I walked in I noticed that we were all foreign girls, mainly young. To tell you the truth it was a boy's wet dream: naked girls lying there with their bare bottoms ranging in ethic colours. The women that bathed us, who were not so young and in thier underwear, must have thought that foreign girls were dirty. I watched as they scrubbed the first girl. It must have taken at least a half an hour to get her clean. There were at least 5 women scrubbing us foreign, dirty girls. They cleaned us if we were used cars, letting the suds fall as they may all over and chatting with their friends as if we weren't alive. A mere slap on the arse meant turn belly up. When the woman got to me she smiled and indicated that I should lye face down.

The water and foam trickled down through my legs and I thought how strangly erotic this could be if it weren't Attila of the Hun's sister, Matilda, performing the act. After giving me the denoting slap, she began on my front, scrubbing everything fearlessly, her long large breasts swaying back and forth swishing past my face, each pass a near miss. She washed my hair, rinsed me with a bucket of water and sent me on my way. All of the Attila sisters left at once and left the spanking (and freshly spanked) clean foreign girls to dry off and get dressed. Apparently, in the men's bath, the scrubbers are clothed, scrub you even harder and stand on you while they chat with their buds.

I thought my bath wonderful until I realised that my nipples were permanently irritated from the excess scrubbing. Well at least I was clean (for once in my life).

The next day we set out to find this so called spice market. It turned out to be one of my favourite markets in Istanbul (besides from a more varied one on the Asian side of Istanbul). Before arriving, I was tricked by a shoe shiner. He dropped his shoe shine brush strategically in front of me, just after eying our shoes. "Yes they are leather", he must have been thinking. I went running after him. He "acted" so happy that I "saved" his brush that he offered us a "free" shine. After his friend arrived to "help" the poor foreigners, he accepted our tip but told us he preferred bills over coins.

The grand finale was the show that we went to the last night, that was an all in one show. This included all the dances and music types of Turkey, dinner, transport and the opportunity to kiss a wedding singer. After the Dervish man spun and the belly dancer shook her bootie in front of the Iranian men (they all drilled holes into the table) and they had stuffed sufficient bills in her bijangled bra, a singer that was said to be world famous came out to perform. I have tried to attach a video because I do not think words can describe this moment. He sang Hava Negela and the Greek ladies sitting behind us went absolutely raging mad.

To give time to pass out pictures of those who wanted photos of themselves dressed in Sultan garb, they called the women of the audience on the stage. To be a good sport, I went. Here is where I and the other "ladies" were plainly bullied into kissing the "wedding singer/swinger". After we had sufficiently danced to make our faces red and he had wiped the sweat from his face, he asked our husbands and boyfriends if we could one by one kiss him. Some type of strange fantasy he has had since he was a wee little boy I suppose. I think it would have been a whole lot better had they filled us full of raki (thier famous anise liquor) before getting us on stage. Any way you look at it, it was an eventful end to a lovely trip. After 3 hours of sleep we boarded our plane and set off for the Iberian Peninsula.