Wednesday, August 29, 2007

My Turkish Twin...

Turkey: A country full of men. Men who, as you walk past, tell you how beautiful you are, always trying to guess your nationality. Men who are so forward in their feeling, and don't hold anything back. Men, who ultimately, are just trying to sell you something.

As we were headed to our next point of interest, one of the mosques in the main square, a young Turkish guy stopped to tell us that the call of prayer was about to start and now was not a good time to site see the mosque. We looked around to see if he was telling the truth, and in fact, men were walking in herds towards the mosque to, well, pray. We kindly thanked him and smiled goodbye. We had decided to hold off for a bit and head in another direction. I think we ventured down to the aqueducts or maybe went shopping; I don't quite remember. A couple of hours later we happened across this same guy. He again stopped, and chatted us up. As me and him were talking, my sister got this classic snap shot.

(Twins: Me and my Turkish Twin)

Only in the land of the foreign, outside of America, would you find a guy wearing a purple and pink and green striped shirt, an almost identical pattern to my tank top. There is just no shame, or maybe every one is proudly metro. Not really sure, but I can't help but love it.

As we chatted and parted ways, he recommended a place to eat later, which we followed up on. After joining us for a drink, my mom warily headed to the hotel, while my sister and I joined him and his cousin for some tea and backgammon and even a little hookah (although we did not partake in the hookah).

All in all, he seemed like a nice guy. I must say, having tea is a lot more innocent than going out for beers at a club. After all, tea is a sign of friendship, offered anytime, anywhere.

We ran into him a couple of other times during our stay in Instanbul, but never sat down for tea again. I cant say I was bummed because, really, I was in Turkey, and there were sooo many other things to see and enjoy! I will always remember these encounters and meetings with my Turkish Twin, and always look back fondly of the time we had tea together.

1 comment:

Melody said...

you are too cute!