Let the Good Times Roll

Arabic Food Gatherings in Zeytinburnu with friends

I used to be really good at keeping a journal, especially the first time I came to Istanbul three years ago. I don't know, in some ways I think they are really great and in some ways I find them rather tedious. I always get this quote in my head whenever I sit down to write, a quote by Thoreau I believe, that goes something along the lines of "my life would have been the book I would have written but I could not both write and live it." And even so, I find myself reliving experiences through keeping these recordings of adventures--adding new meaning and learning new lessons from past memories. Anyways, this is my long way of saying I want to write more about the real day-to-day stuff.

So this past weekend has been pretty great, work has been settling into a nice routine lately, getting out and meeting up with new and old friends is always a pleasure, and I find myself understanding more and more of this crazy language that surrounds me--even if I can still only mainly respond with "tam am," "evet," and a welcoming smile (but mainly just english...fail).

So adorable!

This weekend in particular has been pretty fantastic as well, as weekends always are. Friday we had a really nice, albeit stressful and hectic Halloween party at work for the kids. While Turkish people dont actually celebrate Halloween persae, like most international cities you kind of just adopt any excuse to drink and make bad decisions. Oh yeah, and dress up to pretend to be more badass than you actually are. But the party was good, kids mainly just dancing around crazy and stuffing their mouths with delicious homemade turkish treats their parents sent them to school with.

Afterwards I set out to go and hang with my friends Farhad, Yalin, and Boo Friend for a relaxing chilled out evening up in the empire state. Basically just consisted of us taking communal short naps together and pigging out on delicious leftovers from my work party, but hey. Not every night can be out at da club. And besides, as previously noted I am an old woman now so this is about as rowdy as it gets most nights for me.

Woke up next morning and vegged about the house, dicking around on the internet and killing time until the Anathema concert. If you've never heard of Anathema before, don't worry. Before two months ago neither had I, but they are Boo Friend's favorite band and so being an awesome girlfriend I decide to check them out. I haven't really been to a concert in...2 years I think it was? So regardless of the band, I was desperately in need of some live music. Plus the ticket wasn't that expensive. The only thing I would have changed about the concert was that it was 7098765434567898765456789 degrees. But I suppose thats what you get for throwing a concert in an underground garage.

While rock and metal isn't necessarily my genre, I will admit the band was pretty talented. I think it was ten times more enjoyable as well because it was an acoustic concert--one of the downsides I always find at concerts with full bands is that they are just so damn loud. I really love listening to the vocals, and I know artists spend a lot of time writing them so It upsets me when the musicians drown out the lyrics. Anywho, I digress. Anathema is a good band, you should check them out here.

Hamid and Vincent. Bromance

After the concert we waited around because Boo Friend wanted to do another interview with one of the band members. Last year when they were here he did an interview with Danny, one of the guitarists, which was pretty cool and so he wanted to follow up with the other 2 band members. We waited around for quite a while to the point where I didn't think we were going to be able to do the interview when finally we were ushered inside to meet with the other guitarist, Vincent. Hamid was absolutely beside himself, like a 5 year old being taken into a candy shop--I just couldnt even contain my laughter sometimes. So he interviewed Vincent, a pretty good interview (and interviewer I should say, I couldn't do that in my third language...if I knew one) and we were on our way to DoRock, Farhad's favourite rock bar in Istanbul. How was it you are asking? Is that what you're asking? Im sorry, what? What? SPEAK UP I AM NOW DEAF. But for realz, it was alright. Sat around for a while resting our legs from standing for the whole concert and then headed back to the house. Overall, a pretty fantastic night.


And then today was exactly how a Sunday should be--lazy, overcast, with delicious food and warm hot beverages. While I'm not exactly thrilled that the weekend is over, I can't say I'm altogether depressed about  my job either. Its a pretty good life I have here, feels more and more like home every day and I'm just grateful for weekends like this that remind me that despite temporary shitty parts I am happy.

It's a good time to be alive everybody.