Istambulers

Recommended Soundtrack: "When The Sun Goes Down" by Arctic Monkeys

This is not a travel blog (although I would much enjoy being a travel writer - and getting paid for it, so I guess I am accepting offers anyone in the tourism business). In any case my main areas of interest, culture to culture connections and intangible expressions of one's culture, that much was experiences in its highest forms of lively intensity during my trip to Türkiye, specially Istambul.

From Brasil and Australia, Aline and I crossed half the planet to conquer the world by its centre. We met at the airport full of electricity, we were ready to overthrow the AK Party if needed - in fact, we accompanied the elections in our first two days in Istambul and without knowing, ended in a demonstration in favour of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the new candidate. And that was when we were on our way to Kadıköy, to conquer the East. Which was after our tour in the Hagia Sophia, the mesquitas and palaces, the grand bazaar. So really, we were not there to fuck spiders as we say here in Australia, when it comes to conquering. After a hurdle to get ferry tickets, and many people cutting the queue, we hopped on the boat and crossed the historic Bosporus. As soon as we arrived in Kadıköy, we realised we had come to a youthful, lively and trendy local spot. We roamed around, looking for a savour snack - a commodity if you are not wanting a kebab. We ended up in a spot where about five people had to get together to serve us a sandwich, always making a confusion as we go. They also served us the sweetest tea in the world, which was the favourite of the boy who worked there. The sugar must have spiked us and after going through the most well conserved and cheapest record story, we opened the bar for a beer. We had a good one in a place with sunlight and ventured on for the next (+5), in a clearly local venue. We gossiped about our friends and our entire lives, having had the previous night for the main update conversations. We laughed endlessly and asked the bar for a good eatery to close the night. But enemies of the end as we are, in the kebab shop we also asked around for a nice bar nearby and so we ended up in a good old classic rock bar, playing Arctic Monkeys and the likes. It truly felt, through the whole of the Kadıköy experience, that we were back in our golden days of youth, roaming around Augusta and taking over Neu in São Paulo. And last but definitely not least, the whole experience of feeling love and being in love. Not only in the romantic sense, yet that played a part, but with life and friendship. With the serendipity of how our paths crossed and how we have taken the responsibility to care and nurture for the love that we have.