Sunday we get to sleep in a little. The jet lag hasn’t really floored us yet, but without any afternoon naps, we haven’t really gotten adjusted yet. The mornings are tough. Today we decide to intersperse some sight-seeing with a little shopping at Taksim Square. Our only stop of the day is the Basilica Cistern. Its essentially a big water pot – it held the palace’s water supply, some 80,000 cubic meters. And there are some medusa heads down there. Ok, off to shop.

The clothes in Turkey are pretty similar to the fashions we get in the states. Some of the stores are the same, but I think there are mostly European imports. I finally took a stand on one issue – “manpris”. As a fashion decision I had always abhorred them. But for those days when you feel too sophisticated for shorts, but you are not quite in the full-length pant state of mind – they are perfect. You can rock out with your ankles out. Nads is dead set against them. She calls me some pretty Un-PC names whenever I raise the subject. She finally understood that I was only looking at the “athletic” manpris – like a pair of adidas that are made out of the wind-suit material (for working out, a quick jaunt to the store, etc.). Like most of the major decisions in our life – this one went my way after some heavy duty wearing down. I still haven’t found my size in the mapris I like, but I have a couple more shots before we leave Turkey. Here’s to holding out hope!

We were all pretty siked about dinner that night. We were going to Galatasaray Adasi, a really nice hotel/club on its own island. We had to take the restaurant’s private little boat over. Felt very shi-shi.

This place is definitely the nicest restaurant I have ever been to. It was a large outdoor venue with an Olympic size swimming pool smack in the middle of the large lower deck. That terrace overlooked the Bosphorus river, with the Bosphorus bridge set as the backdrop. Inside the pool – an addition had been cut into the side of the pool, with a very shallow area. In the shallow area were several beds that you had to wade to get to. You could just roll up your pants (or not if you were smart enough to rock manpris), and have dinner on a bed in this pool with this amazing view. There were 2 other decks above this first one, and each deck had its own restaurant. So the lower deck was more café casual, while our deck (the middle) was Italian with the upper deck serving Turkish. On our deck there was a huge cutout area surrounding the bar that doubled as a dance space. The Italian food was a pleasant surprise. Well-cooked, good flavor – all around high quality (including the desserts), and we ate like monkeys. It was our first non-Turkish Turkish meal, and it hit the spot.

Its too bad the place was dead though. From the time we got there at about 9:45 pm, to the time they ran us out around 12am, there were probably no more than 5 or 6 other couples dining. No dancing that night either.

So we headed back to Taksim Square. Since it had been a chill day, we had all squeezed in naps, gotten our 2nd wind – and we were determined to have a crazy Turkish night. Sunday nights are generally pretty chill in Istanbul, but we found a couple of spots to stalk.

Stop 1 – the Gate. Techno hell v. 2.0. We walked in and 30 seconds later we bounced right back out.

Stop 2 – Carizy. The bouncers convinced us to check the place out by showing us a videocam of the scene inside. People were popping and the music had words – sold. We ended up hanging out for about 2 hours, and had a great time. I can’t remember the last time I was rocking out at a club! I was doing my thing though – nice to know I still got it. Right up to the point where I tweaked my knee. I think I tore my ACL, or my MCL – whichever ligament gets strained in the middle of a fierce transition from cabbage patch/running man to spin/moonwalk exit. But even on one knee, I still got it.

The other cool thing about this bar is that there were big screens all over the place, and they were showing MTV France – which was playing The Real World Australia. Not only that, but the episode being aired was the one were Parisa hooks up with Alex (who was also hooking up with one of the slutty blondes who I can never tell apart. Parisa gets hammered and pukes on herself in the confessional before coming out and bleep-bleeping the bejesus out of the slutty blondes. All the while Cuhutta just sits there and talks to his sandwich – classic. Could really be one of the best TRW episodes ever (and if you still don’t know what I am talking about, you really should ask yourself what you are doing reading this blog.) Anyways, so Nads and I are watching this unfold on the big screen at the bar, and we were trying to remember some of the things Parisa says to the slutty blondes because they were some good lines, but neither of us can remember, and the show is dubbed in French…with Turkish subtitles. So we ask the bartender – who is watching as intently as us – to translate the subtitles. “6 people. 1 house. Crazy life”, he says straight-faced. Sweet – thanks for that (and newsflash bro – its 7 people!!) like all other bars the music got progressively more techno, and TRW ended so time to bounce again.

As we are wandering down the street, we did not choose our next spot, it chose us. We heard the sweet crooning of Shakira-Shakira! And just naturally started wandering up and down alleys until we found the bar playing the music. As we got closer I could feel my ACL (or MCL) getting tingly and gearing up for round 2. We finally found the place and rolled in and unfortunately the place was dead. The 2 DJs were spinning their arses off though and rocking the best American beats. So we outlasted the other 3 guests (who probably left because there was no techno), and partied till they kicked us out at 3am.

Another crazy night in Istanbul…