New Year's Day (well, Night really)

By the time I woke up on New Year’s Day, it was close to 7 p.m.  Having done my reconnaissance mission the night before, I headed back to Istlikal.  No sooner than I get there, a young man starts chatting with me.  As some of you know, I am going deaf, so listening to people in strong foreign accents is that much harder.

And as native New Yorkers are bred to be cautious, alert, some might say cynical and neurotic… I wondered how I would fare in this country having heard that Turks are renowned for their friendliness and warmth.  I can also be a gullible sort too, despite my street cred :) So, if someone isn’t trying to sell me something, steal something, hustle something, I think, “Huh?”  This guy was Kuwaiti/Kurdish/Turkish, visiting with his large family.  I ask, “Who’s watching your kids?,” to which he responds his wife (and his parents).  He fills me in a bit on the complicated history between the Kurds and Turks, the difference between Arabic women and Turkish women, asks me about my profession and marital status (as everyone here does!  If I wanted that, I would just go visit my mother! :) .  He invites me to join him for drinks, which I decline.  As it turns out, he just wanted to practice his English and get to know a fellow visitor.  But, I sort of like this traveling, eating and drinking alone thing.  Plus, I am still somewhat skeptical.  Can take the boy out of NYC, but can’t take NYC out of the boy.

No sooner than I turn back down Istlikal, another guy strikes up a conversation with me.  I had slipped up, the trick is to look down, try to avoid eye contact with people (and I call myself a native NY’er).  And so this fella was from central Anatolia, his accent was stronger and his English was not as good.  He wants to grab drinks and dinner, and I haven’t quite learned to shake people so we walk for a while until I work up the moxie to say, thanks but no thanks. 

By then, I hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours.  So began my evening of eclectic eating.  I start with gianduja (Sofe, that’s like Nutella) gelato.  It is right there.  Dessert first, right?  I am so hungry having tried to shake these guys I’ve lost valuable eating time.  Next up, a large fresh squeezed orange juice for less than $1.  Next, roasted chestnuts (the vendors are everywhere).  Then I wander some more, searching for a restaurant that feels “right” to me.  The options are overwhelming, but I finally take the plunge at a place that is doing a brisk business outside with their fried mussels. 

I order a quarter sandwich of roasted lamb intestines (served with a smoky/spicy sauce), sarma (stuffed grape leaves I think), stuffed mussels, and a whole sea bass.  I ask the waiter, is this too much food for one person?  He looks me over and says, “For you, no.”  Then he motions at his portly middle-aged body and says, “For me, yes.”  As it turns out, it was a wee bit too much food, and too much food that tasted the same (the sarma and the mussels had the same stuffing which was very filling).  But the sandwich was good, except when I bit into some hard bits, and the fish was well-fried.

I head back to Nevizade Street for some raki, begin to enjoy the numb tongue feeling while a fight almost breaks out in front of the hotel not 4 feet in front of me.  Almost.  I mention my disappointment to the gent at the next table, who is from Norway, visiting Istanbul with his German friend (and two Latvian friends they were meeting up with) and headed to Malaysia for 4 months.  That is the life.  I asked how his pan-Euro group formed and they all met through couchsurfing.com.   Good to know it’s not just for, well… couchsurfing. 

It is probably about 1:30 and I decide to walk home for a second night running. This time though, there are no other walkers, no New Year’s revelers.  I get to the bridge and see at least a hundred fishermen lining both sides of the bridge, with their poles dangling below into the Bosporus (or its estuary).  They have makeshift fires in metal cans or with heaps of garbage. I peer over the bridge into the littered water, watch their hooks and bait make small ripples into the water when cast, and then disappear.  They are patient, which I suppose comes with the territory.   On one fisherman’s pole, I see the shadowy outline of a small fish, maybe an anchovy.  The angler next to him, a larger shadow, maybe a sardine.  I wander over to their recycled plastic buckets and see their evening’s work.  The anchovy guy had been busy and caught at least 5 larger than a sardine-type fish. 

I keep on walking, almost home, and run into a quartet surrounding the sweetest looking blond-haired dog who is lying prone on the sidewalk being petted.  The strays in this city are such docile, sweet, healthy and beautiful animals.  It’s quite strange actually.  So I get in on the action and the quartet introduces themselves as a band of Aussies and Kiwis now living in London.  Two were Caucasian, one of them was of perhaps South Asian descent, one was perhaps of African descent – and here we all were, petting a dog in the park between Aya Sofya and Sultanahmet Mosque at 2:something in the morning. 

I may have only been awake for 7 hours by then, but it was an unexpectedly full and gratifying evening.  And I didn’t even write about the amazing musical duo playing at this bar in a tiny alley.  Such soulful electric violin and vocals, haunting.