Saturday, January 6, 2007

The previous night ended up quite strange because the beer consumption led to a small quarrel between me and the other Turkish receptionist. He couldn’t control his dislike of Greek people and naturally I would defend my self if I felt offended. But, no worries, I knew I was going to deal with that; likes and dislikes, Greeks and Turks. That is why my subject is so exciting for me,it is a challenge!
Anyway, I woke up quite tired, had Turkish breakfast at the hostel(included in the price), which consists of an egg, a slice of orange, a slice of apple, three olives, four slices of cucumber, three slices of tomato, one marmalade, butter and cream cheese, and a lot of bread. And Coffee or tee, of course. After I went for my regular(!) walk around the city, although my feet were very tired from all these kilometres of walking last night. I walked a lot, heard for the first time the call for praying and watched the ceremonial washing before the prayer. I walked until I reached the Grand Bazaar, the biggest bazaar in the city. Actually it is so huge, you can get lost very easily. Then I came back to the hostel for an afternoon’s rest; I haven’t stopped walking since I arrived. My French roommates- actually they are two in one bed because there wasn’t a free bed last night- were there and I proposed to go the hamam, the Turkish bath. They liked the idea, so after some hanging around in the hostel, drinking tea with lemon and talking to people, we left for the hamam. It was a great experience, very relaxing and pleasurable. My body needed that so very much! After that we went to Taksim again, it is the centre of the city in every sense; a multitude of people and lots of restaurants, bars, clubs, cafes, everything that your heart wishes for! The guys took me to a bar were some people were dancing with very nice Turkish music. On our quest for our next stop, I met on the street a Turkish guy I had met last night when I went out with Onur. He took us to a bar with live heavy metal music, because it was already 3 am and many bars were closed. Beers kept on coming to the table, Turkish guys kept on lighting my cigarette (!) and finally we came back to the hostel at 5 am.