New Year's Eve in Istanbul
Earlier Istanbul posts at http://martinho.livejournal.com/6918.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/7372.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/7430.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/7691.html .
Day 5 in Istanbul was New Year's Eve and also the day we moved to another hotel. After the last breakfast at the guesthouse which I still haven't determined whether I should name here, we took a cab to the Savoy Hotel (not Savoi, as I've written earlier), located right at the Taksim end of Istiklal Caddesi. Despite our doubts that we all would fit in the cab together with our luggage, we did and all went well. I liked our first hotel, but a part of me certainly was happy to come to permanently heated rooms, flushing toilet paper not being forbidden, TV on the room and bathtubs. Access to the services of a secretary (for a fee) was perhaps less of a selling point for me or anyone in the family, but somewhat amusing to see offered. Dad took a bath at this point (my notes are very detailed for this day and for some of the following ones, and it seems a shame to just throw it away, so I will be mentioning some things like this). Emelie and I watched some TV, Turkish and other.
Then we went out to look for a restaurant for a nice New Year's dinner (before this, however, I'd had time to write and draw a bit in my notebook). We walked around for a while, hither and dither, looking for a restaurant, until we found one, Italian, without any view to speak of, but nice in many other ways. Before that we'd eaten böreg at a sort of "fast food café" place.
Jumping forward in time again, when we'd booked our table at Tavola (the name of the Italian restaurant), we spent some time in one of the Starbucks on Istiklal Caddesi. I, and a bit later Emelie, went back to the hotel with the intention of doing some schoolwork. Other things were done instead (by me, Emelie probably got some schoolwork done). I took a bath, wrote a bit in my notebook and watched an interview with Jimbo Wales (founder of Wikipedia) on TV, sent an sms to Anna back in Sweden... And then it was time to start the evening's celebrations with some raki, champagne, cheese, nuts, Turkish delight, olives, sausages for those so inclined...
Then to the restaurant, rather late (though that turned out not to be a problem, we were the first guests to arrive anyway). On the way there, we passed a dead cat (for the second time, we saw it first when we were out restaurant-hunting). The restaurant was great. The staff talked to eachother and to some of the guests in Italian. As mentioned, the restaurant's name was Tavola, and if you're in Istanbul and you can find it (I can help with how to get there from Taksim Square, if you want), I truly recommend it. Now, having mentioned the name of the restaurant I can't tell the best part of the story of our dinner there. Another time... and I will tell it, 'cause it's a pretty good story. A sad part of the story that I can tell now is that mom was not feeling to well. She liked the restaurant and hopefully enjoyed herself at least part of the time, but she ate very little and looked rather uncomfortable.
At midnight we were at Taksim Square. A lot of people were there though the big show that was planned had been cancelled. Still, it was quite calm right up until the impressive fireworks precisely at midnight, which were greeted by hearty applause. It was nice, though it felt a little odd with all the police that were there.
And then we went back to mom's and dad's room at the hotel for a while. And then Emelie and I went out again, making our parents horribly concerned. Everything ended well, though. We found a little bar just off Istiklal Caddesi, on a street called "Imam Adnan". It was called either "Lion's bar" or "Melal". They played a lot of latin music, but there was also some other things mixed in. We drank some beer and did some dancing and enjoyed the atmosphere and returned to the hotel just before 5. And then we slept.