Saturday, in list form
Django is doing so much better. Thank you all for your kind notes and words about his health. It really helped.
So I decided to keep my plans to go out with Emily and her two guy friends, who, in a grandiose act of poetic justice, are both plastic surgeons.
I took the bus! I was so proud of myself, until I realized there was a Besiktas game on. Which I should have figured out, because there had been A MARCHING BAND on my street all day. You know you’ve gotten used to living in Istanbul when you pass a marching band on your street, shrug, and keep walking to buy toilet paper.
quieter Besiktas street This meant the traffic, which is normally horrendous, was extra horrendous. Then the bus sailed past my stop, so I had to walk up 1700 steep streets to get to the restaurant, which was another 5 flights of stairs up.
But what a view.
The plastic surgeons, Yusuf and Ersin, were very friendly. After 3 minutes I forgot to worry about whether they were judging my crow’s feet or lack of plumped lips
After dinner, we went downstairs and danced. The Turks LOVE to dance, and I love that they love to dance to Turkish music. There was a live band, and everyone was seriously getting down.
Emily wanted some air, so I joined her outside.
“Baby,” she said. (She calls everyone baby.) “Yusuf likes you. I can tell.”
“Okay,” I said, because she was a little tipsy and is a Scorpio.
We spotted a bowl of gummy coke bottles, one of my favourite snack foods of all time (don’t judge), on the windowsill of the restaurant. Mystified, we asked the doorman about them. He explained that this was how doormen fuelled themselves through the night. Isn’t that kind of awesome? He handed us the bowl and told us to help ourselves.
We also chatted with the guy selling roses outside. In this country, there’s always someone selling roses outside.
“You should be a Victoria’s Secret model,” he told Emily.
Don’t judge here either, or if you do don’t tell me about it, but at 12:45, I decided to call it a night. I was having a blast, but I knew that getting home could take years, and I had to check on Django. Yusuf understood, because he also has a dog, whom he dresses up in Besiktas t-shirts.
Yusuf and Emily came outside with me, and then, much to my confusion, Emily vanished. (Yes, I figured it out later.) Yusuf and the coke bottle gummy doorman found me a taxi. As we pulled away, the rose guy hurled a rose through the open window, which delighted me more than I care to admit.
My taxi driver took me straight home.
Django was overjoyed at my return, and was just fine, which I was overjoyed about.
I put on my sneakers and we went for a walk. The streets were still packed. I thought for a second about calling my new buddies and inviting them over. Then I realized that I just wanted to be alone with my dog, eat gluten-free breadsticks.
I don’t know if Besiktas won.
But it felt like I did.
another Besiktas back street find
