Yesterday night I went to the movies. We walked in, and my friend, Laura, and I decided to use the 'toilet' (that's just how literal Turkish can be sometimes). Across from the toilets was the one projection room, where a beaten-up sofa faced a little hole in the wall (clearly this acted as a screening room as well).Toilets in Turkey are either holes in the floor (see above, which is the toilet I found on the ferry to Princes Islands), or regularly-sized toilets whose contents refused to be flushed. Also, toilet paper is a rare commodity.
But I digress. After using the restroom, we headed downstairs to the concession area. There, one of our group had ordered popcorn. The Turkish man popped a bag into the microwave and voila! Popcorn.
So 'Inglourious Bastards' might not have been the best option. I had seen it before, so I knew what was going on, but a lot of the movie is in French and in German, so the subtitles that were in English when I saw it in the US were in Turkish in Turkey...
There was an intermission, which I had never experienced at a movie theatre before, and when the movie ended the credits were not even run -- the movie was simply turned off, and we were led out of the theatre, having to duck under a gate that was half-closed.
It was definitely an interesting movie-going experience.
In other news, I finished Laura Hillenbrand's 'Seabiscuit'! It was just great. Every night, Jessica would make fun of me for reading, of all books to read in Istanbul, an account of this great horse. It reads like a work of fiction, drawing from historical references, as well as pop cultural references. My eyes kept straying to the next page to see what would happen.
I recommend it enthusiastically! Now, I should look into reading something actually related to Istanbul; most likely I will begin reading some works by the great Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk.
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