"Anarcho-Hipsters" and Hamams

The weekend is normally too packed to properly update everyday, but now I would like to share some of the highlights of my weekend: 1) The Street Art Istanbul Festival 2) Turkish Hamam 3) Dinner with a Turkish Woman. How they are all connected, I cannot tell, but here we go: 

The Street Art Istanbul Opening

Work panlists at Toplum are fascinating. Working in youth networking and development means that you instantly have access to every youth movement in Istanbul. I found an event beneath the Galata Tower celebrating the opening of a "Graffiti Arts Center" complete with DJ's, free style rap, and poli (flame throwers). 

The "Graffiti Arts Center" was not a Museum. It was a decaying old warehouse out of Gotham City. I get there around 8 PM with some friends and felt a little dressed up in my oversize men's button up, sans cigarette or beer. We decide to turn around for a drink, even just to hold so we don't look too foreign in the hip/grunge/punk/hipster/gangsta crowd we suddenly found ourselves in. Upon returning to youth central, we entered an old warehouse of 4 stories, each with works of anarchist graffiti and stickers. Albeit political, sexual, or just plain cool looking graffiti, everyone was adding to it and making their mark. In a place like Turkey where an OSS exam places you into a career and a college, youth need something to define their individuality. 

We went into the upper salon, where everyone was smoking and dancing in a sort of LA street style way. I couldn't make up my mind if I was in the 8 Mile or Terminal 5 for a Vampire Weekend Concert. Call them anarcho-hipsters, as Edgar would, or "narco-hipsters" sans narcotics. Call them a bizarre mix of LA and NYC street youth. Call them the Peripheral Underground. Call them what you will, but the flame throwers were cool. 

Check out the website. So cool: 

http://streetartistanbul.com/

Hamam

Turkey is famous for their Turkish Bath. For my afternoon, I decide to the second best Hamam in Istanbul (not the best where Tony Curtis and Franz Liszt had visited). This Hamam was built by architect Sinan in 1584, with beautiful pendentives where a large dome rests on the bath areas---one for men and one for women. The dome has holes with "elephant eye" glass to let psychedelic light in from the heavens. Turkish bath architecture usually consists of this dome with a hot flat marble stone underneath, faucets, jacuzzi bath, and then different antechambers in a colder room to lounge in. Back in the day, if a husband could not afford for his wife to go to Hamam twice a week, she had legitimate grounds to divorce him. ("Hunny, you didn't buy me massage this week. We are over!") 

My experience: I go, say goodbye to Edgar who goes to the men's side (which kind of looks like Gringott's bank I swear), then I am pushed around by large women who tell me to undress. I don't know if I should wear a swimsuit, so I just go... well, naked. I put my towel on, they hurry me into the bath room where women with tata's down to their knees (naked) are scrubbing down naked or partially naked women. They take my towel off and lay me on the hot rock. Just breathe Danielle. After 15 minutes of sweating, a women with tata's the size of my thighs starts scrubbing the skin off me and giving me a sort of back realignment. She then rinses me off, then uses a sort of pillow to bathe me. Never before had a loved the feeling of floating in a sea of foam on a rock. Amazing. She rinses me again, gives me hot panties to wear, and then I soak more. After that, I go lounge and nap. 

Who knew sweating naked on a hot rock could be so great? 

(Almost) equally cool, I went to the famed "Pudding Shop," a place for hippies back in the 60's to meet before they embarked on their trips in their VW buses for India or Afghanistan. Bill Clinton's photo was there.

Turkish Dinner

For dinner, I called up a Ph. D. student who I met at Bilgi University. After (rather boldly, if I do say) bringing up the scarf ban in public places, this woman and I instantly were connected. She wears the scarf, technically illegally, in university. At work in the government, she has to be placed under a special "contract" for "short term" work, eve if she is a long term employee. People complain about women being FORCED to WEAR the scarf. In Turkey, there is a prejudice (at least in Istanbul) towards women who CHOOSE to wear the scarf. They are FORCED NOT to wear it! (Just as bad if you ask me). 

Her driver took me to Bebek, a cute, Shadyside like part of Istanbul where the rich dock their yachts. We finally found a restaurant when her younger brother appeared. We had a lovely dinner with coffee and (for them) cigarettes. The waiter asked for my friend's number, but because his wife also wore the scarf and couldn't get employment. My friend was the only woman wearing the scarf in this really nice eating establishment. We chatted about politics, Obama (who Turks love, particularly for the religious acceptance/Arab tolerance), my acting, men, economics, and business. I won't share the intimacies of our meal, but I found it one of the best times I've had in a long time.