8/22/2023: Yacht Party

We booked a dinner cruise for our last night in Istanbul. Departing from Beyoglu, we traveled up the Bosporus Strait on the European side and back down the Asian side. We were served a cultural three course meal with endless drinks and fantastic entertainment.

A group of talented dancers performed five different songs throughout the night giving us more than a glimpse of traditional Turkish dance. From the boat, we could see a few historical landmarks and we went underneath this amazing bridge that looked awfully like the Golden Gate in San Francisco.

There was a professional photographer who came around to each table and took pictures. The slight variations to our posture and the lighting on her camera made such a big difference. When she came back at the end of dinner with the book of pictures for us to buy ($60) we nearly jumped at it. We had to remind ourselves that we had 1,000+ pictures we’ve already taken together this trip and these 10 more (in print!) likely weren’t worth $1 each to us, motherless $6 a piece. So, when the photographer wasn’t looking, we did our best to take pictures of the prints with our phones. We thought we were doing such a great job until we looked at them later that night. The mood lighting in the dining room foiled our plan and overlayed a hew of red, green, yellow, blue, pink, or purple on top of the picture.

But with enough editing, we still managed to get a few half-decent shots.

The night ended with with a dance party where we got to see adults face off versus their younger selves in a dance battle. It was some of the best entertainment we had.

On the way back to our hotel, we got our one and only authentic Istanbul transportation experience. We crammed into a trolley in Beyoglu headed back for Sultanahmet. What we thought was jam packed wasn’t even close. At each stop more and more people crowded in and barely anyone was getting out. We squeezed like sardines and would have been able to feel the breath of the passengers standing next to us…except there were boisterous conversations going on. People had gotten split up while cramming into the trolley so they were yelling across the crowd to maintain the discord. This was amplified by 5 different groups speaking at the same time, all trying to talk louder than the other. So instead of feeling the breath of the person next to you, you felt the words climbing up your neck and down your arms. When it was our time to get off the trolley we had to trudge our way through, making space with our shoulders and pushing people out of the way with our hips. What a way to end it in Istanbul.

-J