Our Night Out on the Town

After spending our first day in Istanbul seeing the sights, a small group of us decided that we wanted to check out a bit of local color. Mary, John, Cindy, Suzanne, and I hopped in a cab and went to an area of Istanbul called Beyoglu. Beyoglu is a really neat area with lots of small shops and restaurants and bars. When we got there, there were very few tourists, but LOTS of locals. We had headed there to go to a specific bar that was hosting live Fasil music that night. One of John's friends had told us about it. What we hadn't been told was that the bar was unmarked and rather small. Anyway, after finding it...we finally sat down to a beer and a dinner of Mezze (which is essentially a table-full of appetizers). We also tried Raki. Raki is a Turkish liqueur that you mix with water. When it comes out of the bottle, it is clear, but once you add water to it, it becomes a milky-white color. You drink about 1/5 Raki and 4/5 water in a tall, skinny glass. It smells like black licorice, although the taste is not that harsh. I personally didn't really care for it, although I did try it. The beer was great! I'm sure that we were drinking a US equivalent of Pabst Blue Ribbon or something, but it was refreshing and delicious. It's called Efes, and is served everywhere. Usually it costs about 3 lira (less than $2), but we did see it on the menu of a ritzy hotel-bar for 12 lira!! RIP-OFF! :)

Anyway...here we are sitting inside this little bar waiting for the music to start. Before we know it, the place is PACKED! Most of the people there were young (in their 20s) and as soon as the music started, they began to dance! The music was wonderful. Fasil music is essentially traditional music that uses a fiddle, clarinet, drum, and a stringed instrument that acted like a bass guitar. It was vibrant and amazing. Soon enough, we too were out on the make-shift dancefloor boogie-ing our butts off! It was excellent. There was one girl there who was clearly a trained belly dancer. She was dancing like crazy...lifting up her shirt to show her stomach...and having a great time. When she got ready to leave, she put on her head scarf and walked out the door! We were all floored! It was great. Suzanne and I ended up dancing with this crazy guy who told us he was a gypsy! Very funny. We got back to the hotel and finally to bed around 2 am, only to have to get up and go again the next day! :)