Paco´s Life: Madrid

Istanbul II

30 December 2006 9:37 AM | In ICEX, Istanbul, Nightlife, Travel | 61 Comments

All pictures from the second night of partying in Istambul are here!

The plan for the night was to seriously go out. Here it was when a group of people who would end up messing the situation was formed. Tel Aviv, Moscow, Bucharest and me got one of the apartments and started to drink the rum we had brought. Paris and Warsaw were lost with a friend of the second one and the girls were having a more relaxed plan so it was our obligation to get the night wild. Very serious drinking time we had, we ended up walking the center of Istambul with a huge bottle full of rum. The night had many anecdotes to tell about, but probably they are only funny if you were there to live them. Like the communication problems we had when I was trying to use Javi´s phone, that moment when I kicked mine directly towards the knee of a poor Turkish girl who was passing by or Moscow´s impressive ability to take pictures been drunk We got together in a nice Turkish place and the night happened to be very very funny :-)Great picture, the night punishers team almost complete, just Prague is missing

All pictures from New Year´s Eve in Istambul are here!

But Saturday´s though night had a high price: there was no way to get up on time for a cruise through the Bosforous we had planned. Regreteable, since I was left with the feeling that Istanbul has a lot to offer and I missed it. We spent the day doing nothing, smoking pipes, getting confused when meeting each other and with hangover. Absolutely nothing to remark about the day. For the night year´s eve Julia had arranged a very good plan, a typical Turkish restaurant had been booked and the idea was to eat some grapes in the house at 12 (Spanish tradition). But and this point things started to get wrong, the Tel Aviv – Moscow – Bucharest - Stockholm connexion had a messy result. While the rest of the people was heading for the restaurant, in which we had to arrive early, these four assholes decided to stay home for having the last drink. But this was not enough and, at a certain point, we had the nasty idea of forgetting about the dinner and just join them for the dessert. So we left the house very late and very drunk and here is when the mess started. Among with other ethylic state we had every kind of problems. Offline phones, confusion when finding the places to meet… A real mess, we pretty fucked up Julia´s dinner and ended up, the four of use, disconnected from the others. Eventually and seen it was impossible to get in touch with the others, we assumed we should spend the night at our own and, to be honest, in the end it happened to be very funny. We met three very friendly Turkish girls (hello Figen!) with whom we celebrated the entering of the new year with flares (apparently the typical thing to do in Turkey). They took us to the best places and the truth is that we had a very very funny night. As there is one hour time difference between Turkey and Spain we celebrated two times. We ended up in a very cool Turkish club where the lights went off for a while. The place had a few floor and there was a music band playing. One of the highest moments of the night occurred when I climbed to the stage and almost stole the microphone from the singer to offer my particular version of “Para bailar la bamba”. There is a video of this that I will only show to people willing to pay big money. By the time it was 12 pm Spanish time we were desperately asking the waiter for drinks that we needed in 2 minutes. No grapes, no nothing, this new year started with a drink on my hands. 2006 has definitely been an original year when talking of special dates: apart from the Turkish New Year´s Eve I just told you, I spent my birthday alone in Bangkok and Christmas night in San Francisco surrounded by globetrotters. But, thinking now, and even though the night happened to be very funny, I am very sorry we could not meet with the others. Besides, Nuria had a very bad time cause she needed to catch a flight early in the morning and we had the keys of the apartment and were unreachable. A little messy but luckily we reunited in the flat on time and, after the well deserved scolding, we could restore the good ICEX vibrations (at least I think so). As can be seen in the pictures we slept very close to each other

The fantastic 4

Javi fell in love

Hats

Turkish girls!

Before finishing the post, I have to speak about the turkish bath, better known as Hamman. Pretty curious thing, first you lay down in a huge and hot stone, like if you were a steak on the grill. Then this guy comes, puts soap all over your body and rub you with an special sponge to open your skin and all that stuff, at the same time he is massaging your body. The truth is that, once you manage to ignore that fact that the one touching you all over is a big guy with moustache, the experience happens to be very relaxing. In the end you get a shower and they take you to another room where you lay in a bed and you get another massage. It would even say I liked it more than the thai massage, I mean the “normal” thai massage, I didn’t try the “other” one So I ended up very “exfoliated” and clean.

Istanbul

29 December 2006 11:24 AM | In Istanbul, Nightlife, Travel | 210 Comments

All first night pictures here

Istambul, nice city located in the union of the european and asian continents. I think I said many times this is a year for travelling and, as far as I can remember, I always spent New Year´s Eve in Madrid so I decided this was a good chance to break this rule. As usual, the ICEX steel partners were ready for the call and 14 of us attended the Istanbul meeting. Apart from the usual suspects: Guerri – Warsaw, Chelo – Dublin, Julia – Istanbul, Nuria – Vilnius and Manuel – Paris, we had new people showing up; a few big night punishers such as Beni – Tel Aviv, Jesús – Moscow and Javi Bucharest and some people who could not make it for the other meetings like Elena – Athens and Rubén – Teheran. Fortunately Julia had two flats available in the same building, at least in theory, so we fit. As soon as I got to the city, Beni was waiting for me with a drink already prepared. With a welcome like this you immediately feel at home, this first night out proved Moscow and Bucarest night skills and also gave us a taste of the Turkish night. The environment is kinda curious, plenty of bars everywhere and people on the street. However you have to negociate prices for the drinks so they don’t cheat you and the feeling is still a bit machist. For example, there was a moment I was dancing (yes, sometimes I do dance) close to a turkish girl without any evil intention of course and then there was this guy coming to me and saying very politely that I should not get so close, that his brother was around and that was not the way things work in that country. No hard feelings neither bad attitude from him but he makes clear YOU are foreign there and there are some things you can´t do. Anyway, it was already very late and there isn’t much to say about the night. We discovered a place closed to Julia´s home for eating Turkish food. Sort of kebabs but slightly different, we got adictive to something called urfa, like a roll with meat and more stuff inside. The place was funny, as soon as you sit down you were served a dish with the most spicy green chillies I ever tried. I don’t know if you were supposed to eat them alone or put them into the urfa. The next night, been very drunk, we challenged each other to see who could eat more, very bad for the stomach… We also met a funny local, very old and full of alcohol who took a seat with us. A pity he did not speak any English other ways I am sure he would have told us plenty of interesting stories.

Dublin, Moscow and me getting to Istanbul

Stockholm, Dublin, Tel Aviv and Moscow

Our turkish friend

 

All tourism pictures hereNext morning, been culture lovers people as all ICEX are, we went to visit the city that is definitely beautiful. Plenty of Turkish churches all over form Istanbul landscape, the view from a high point is awesome. It is funny also to hear all over the city the call for praying early in the morning. Funny but also dangerous if you are next to a guy like Beni – Tel Aviv that, been a little drunk, joined the chorus, showing Julia´s neighbors how faithful he is. Anyway, back to Istambul, the city is divided by the Bosforouso, a strait which marks the border between the European and the Asiatic part. On the other side you have the main Turkish churches and the Great Bazaar. We visited Santa Sofia church and the Basilica Cistern, amazing subterranean space, used in ancient times for storing the water which is filtered through the roof. Very nice… We ended the tourist itinterary at the Istanbul Great Bazaar, huge commercial area full of every kind of shops. Here the girls went shopping as it could be expected. Moscow, Bucharest and me thought it was a better idea to have some beers so we went to a bar Bucharest knew from a previous visit to the city. The waiter there happened to be a very great guy, he remembered Javi from the previous visit (which was one year ago), he was a very clever fella, he even remembered what Javi had drunk that day and who he was going with. Besides, he could speak a very correct Spanish that I am sure he had learnt only by speaking with customers and some other languages. From time to time he sit down to speak to us, without been annoying at all. The other waiter there was also very cool, every time he was serving us a beer he was having one himself so he had quite a few. Honestly, a great place, makes you feel at home. And they were not so friendly because of getting our money, the invited us to some French fries and the guy even refused the tip we tried to give him. Before leaving we took some pictures and got his email address. I would recommend the bar to anyone hanging around in the Great Bazaar.