fieldwork in Istanbul: Night in Istanbul

Yesterday was my 30^th birthday. Such a unique experience to be in the field at this date. My fellow anthropologist and dear friend Carlos sent me a very nice present-email with a poem by Mario Benedetti entitled 'No te salves' (don't save your self) and he wrote me that this number (30) sounds like a liminal age...for the better. I certainly feel like that, otherwise I would be ungrateful.

So, my day started as usual, I had breakfast with Kanber and then I went out to Istiklal caddesi, the big shopping street just 5 min walking from my house. I wanted to buy some kind of sweet, cake or something more traditional, like baklava, but at the end I bought the best profiterole in town! I know, it is not Turkish, but it is a scandalous delight! I bought 2 boxes because now we are more in the house, Andre from Germany moved in last week and he also has a friend visiting. I was thinking to gather all the people to go out for dinner in the evening but they were out, spread around in Istanbul and I did not informed them earlier. Therefore, Kanber, me and Corrado went out. First, we went to a restaurant at a terrace with a remarkable view in the city, had some food and drunk raki (traditional alcoholic drink made from seeds of grapes and anise). As usual, we were the last to leave the restaurant!

Next, I was in the mood to continue somewhere else but the guys said there was nothing open on Monday, 01 o’clock at night. So, we were walking in Taksim when we saw the taxi-rank and an idea hit us. Some nights ago we watched the film 'Night on Earth', five different stories of taxi drivers around the world. The guys loved the movie and suggested that we should do the same in Istanbul, take a ride with a taxi around Istanbul and film it as well. So, this was the perfect time to do it. Kind of drunk and cheerful, we entered a taxi and we asked him to take us to Tarlabasi; as I was told, this is the most dangerous district in Istanbul, the people that you see there are usually prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, etc. The poor taxi driver was a bit scared and he asked if we were going to buy drugs! What could he think if he saw 3 drunk people asking to go to Tarlabasi? During the ride, I was filming the rout but it wasn't that interesting, even these 'bad' people were resting on Monday night. Thus, we asked him to bring us back and on the way I saw a very, very interesting bar and asked him to stop. We got off and went inside the bar. The place was square, 6-7 tables, some girls were sitting here and there and a guy was singing live Turkish songs. His band was one (!) other guy playing keyboards! They greeted us very warmly; one girl came and kissed us on the cheek and Corrado on the lips! Downstairs were rooms for ‘private meetings’ and men kept coming out, appearing from a hole in the ground. The waiter- (owner maybe) brought us the beers and then the girl took me to dance with her. After a few seconds, the boys were dancing as well, but they couldn’t dance with the girl, because men should pay even for dancing with her. The singer was reading the lyrics from a paper and the waiter- boss open for us a champaign that we didn’t order. After finishing the beer we had to go, because we were broke, and the guy was pressing us to buy more alcohol.