Dave the Nomad

After the consulate fiasco, I was ready for a break, and New Years was just the right thing. Our hostel was having a dinner and drink included party with entertainment which most of us decided to attend. We were wandering around on New Years Eve and suddenly noticed a ton of Santa hats and Christmas apparel. After a bit, we asked someone why the late celebration. The response was simple: “Why do you celebrate so early?” Perplexed, they explained. Your basis for the New Year is based on Christ, BC and AD, so why do you celebrate a week early? I laughed. It is arguably the widest reach of Christianity in the world, and Christians don’t even celebrate it on the right day! (Of course Orthodox Christians follow a different schedule, but in main stream society this is hilarious.) Light-hearted I again listened to Christmas tunes playing on the street at a time when most of us would throw the radio after being so sick of hearing them the past month. Belated but happy.

As most of you know, and thanks everyone for the Facebook posts. New Years is my birthday. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work abroad, but it turned out to be a blast. We had a filling Turkish buffett dinner and danced around. At one point the waiters were going around lifting people up on their shoulders and dancing around. The crowd was pretty tame until about 4 minutes to midnight, and then the place took off. I’ve never seen such late bloomers, but maybe its the European trend of not going out to party until 2 am rubbing off on them. I also had the chance to practice one of those dances that should be forgotten, the macarena. We also had a belly dancer come perform for us, and she soon pulled me up and made me dance with her. What we all soon realized was 1) she wasn’t a good belly dancer 2) She wanted money for being pulled up and dancing with her. Regardless, it was a fun party. I’ll have to write a separate post about my feats of during the day time of my birthday.

On a lighter note, the nights between my defeat by the consulates was spent seeing the city. I went to a small bar in the clubbing area with seating for at most 40 people. There was a live band playing Turkish music, everyone was singing along. We ended up being the only English speaking people in the room. It was a fun night, and relaxing break from the bustle of the city.

Brad and I also ended up running into a couple of guys from Chicago. They were just in town for a week or so, but we ended up randomly meeting them again the next night completely unplanned. They were a cool bunch of guys, and certainly a change from the usual Canadian Australian crowd I’ve been meeting along the road so far. So Igor, Paul, and Nemanja send me some pictures, I dont have any with all of us, and say hi to Chi-town for me.

I’ll keep this short after my long-winded consulate story, but I’m planning to drop off my visa application in Ankara and meet back up with some people in Cappadocia. I’ve been looking forward to a visit here for months now, and I hear its snow-covered as well.