A Turkish Cold

I am sick. After playing basketball with a bunch of friends on Wednesday, my Finnish friend, Sean, told us on Thursday that although he wasn't feeling well, he would still come to the European side with us that night. We asked him why he wasn't feeling well, and he told us that he doesn't think he changed out of his sweaty clothes on Wednesday quickly enough. Thus, he guessed that he got a chill, and thus he got a cold. He had some tea at Chris's flat on the European side. There, we discussed all sorts of topics on Chris's terrace (I was drinking wine, not tea).

Chris talked to us about the German identity and what WWII means to the modern German. Sean mentioned that some hipsters in Finland wear the Confederate Flag in the form of patches. Jess and I immediately talked about how that meant that they really, really didn't understand the meaning behind it (and how could they, really?).

We talked about how Germans think that Frank Zappa is on par with The Beatles (I argued completely otherwise); our Dutch friend, Joost, talked about jumping off a cliff into water and breaking his back, and then he proceeded to show us the video on YouTube.

We then headed to Taksim Square, which is the hip, hop, and happening place to go in Istanbul during the evenings (see below). We were swept away by a group doing a pub crawl.

The first bar we went to played CAKE and Michael Jackson, so I could have happily stayed there, but, as with all pub crawls, there was a time limit. By the third pub, I decided to stop drinking and just enjoy the games others were playing (body shots, German drinking games, etc.). The last destination was a club. It was surreal. At this point, everyone was pretty well smashed (I was doing a lot better than some of them, I can tell you that!). The club we went to was projecting, of all things, cartoon network onto the wall!
More people came, the techno beats became increasingly bass-heavy; people were shoving chocolates into other people's mouths, as well as shots, and there were crowd surfers and table-top dancers. Eventually, some of us decided that it was way past our bedtime, so we went home.
The next day, my throat was scratchy....
Then, I became congested, feverish, achy, etc.

I am really spacey now, and though my ears are still plugged, as is my nose, I am feeling lots better after a couple of days of drinking sage tea and sucking on tropical Olips (a Turkish cough drop, which is quite tasty!).
I am actually going to see some tourist attractions this weekend! Stay tuned...