Ok, so officially I am sitting in an airport on my way home, but since I got behind in my blog posts, I am going to pretend it is still Friday. And I shall keep pretending until I have finished all my posts. So there are about 4 or 5 more for you guys to look forward to! Hooray!

This morning? Torture. I think two weeks of about 4 or 5 hours of sleep a day is finally starting to catch up to me. I’m pretty sure this feeling is somewhat akin to how Lazarus felt after his resurrection. However, morning bonus? I finally got a picture of the naked fat mannequins. Score! (small victories, small victories..)

So the morning started off calm. The plan: meet up with some Sufi connections on the other side of the town. It turned into an epic whirlwind adventure involving every mode of transportation minus the tricycle, weaving in and out of small winding alleyways, and blinding following giants up small twisted staircases. No joke.

After navigating trams, broken funiculars, buses, metros, cabs, and the like, we finally met with Omid’s friends Cem (pronounced Jem) and Sherif Baba. Characterization time: Sherif Baba is a fairly short and stooped old man with a big mustache, wiry hair, and a large mole on his upper lip. He also is a fairly prominent Sufi teacher (though remained fairly quiet the whole time) who has a tendency to kiss close friends on the lips. Cem is this huge man with long (mid-back length) bushy red hair, New-Age-y to the extreme, and he eerily resembles Hagrid. Cem had lived in the Chapel Hill for about 17 years so he helped translate much of what was going on.

Ok, now that you all have a mental picture of our haphazard group, you might be able to understand what an interesting group we made tramping around random residential neighborhoods, way off the beaten path of most tourist groups. The whole time, the only real thought running through my head was how easily they could be leading us to some remote location to kill us and sell the body parts. This suspicion only deepened when we all started blindly following them up a small twisty staircase, single file, in some remote dark building. I mean if I were in the underground organ business, that’s how I would do it.

But SURPRISE! It turns out we were getting the chance to not only to participate in a zekr ceremony, but we also were getting to crash the second Sufi birthday party in two weeks. I mean, most people go their entire lives and never experience anything like this.

Before I get into the explanation of what happened, here is the setting: small apartment crammed with women (and two men) ranging from middle aged to very old. Leader: ancient looking woman by the name of Shirin Anne, dressed entirely in red (are blindingly bright costumes requirements for Sufi masters?), and huffing on unfiltered cigarettes like they were her life support. And they probably were, to be honest. First thought upon seeing her? That I have no desire to live to the age where my boobs are below my belly button. (Though it turns out she’s only 68ish – She looks 90 – another reason not to take up smoking)

Okay explanation for the Sufi newbs: zekr is a ceremony that through chanting/singing the names of God, one is led to the remembrance of God.  While at the last Sufi gathering we attended the music was very soothing and calm, this ceremony was of a frantic, fervourish type. It. Was. Fascinating. It was full of ebbs and flows, as people became more into it, spontaneously whirling, spinning or shouting. Cem was getting really into it too, looking very much like a redheaded Wild Thing. I was fortunate enough to basically get a front row seat. However, this comes with certain participatory stipulations as being a passive viewer was not acceptable nor looked favorably upon.

It was a very interesting experience. Very interesting. It’s easy to see how one can get caught up in that community – the bond you feel in this setting is almost tangible. But it also made me slightly uneasy as it seemed … cult-like – channeled into a seemingly good manner, but cult-like nonetheless. Another interesting thing? Her wall was covered with photos and pictures – and in the right hand corner of the room was a smiling picture of Ataturk. You know, the guy who killed several Sufis, banned Sufi lodges, and made it illegal to continue the Sufi practices.

The whole experience took about four hours. So we unfortunately didn’t get to everything we had planned for the day. As we were leaving, here are the cultural faus paux’s that I made:

However, I did remember to bow with my hand over my heart. C minus for cultural aptitude.

Upon leaving our Great Mystical Experience, we all crowd into several dolmushes (van like bus thingers) to the other side of town. Kat and I sat with Cem and his mustache-sporting, mini-‘fro-rocking British friend, and we proceeded to receive a lesson on how we’re all connected to everything  and other New Age-y outlooks. We also learned that you don’t mess with graves. Or if you do, be prepared to suffer some fatal accident like oh so many architects and landscapers before us. Duly noted.

Cem leads us all to go visit the shrine to the grandson of the grandson of the prophet, kept inside the remnants of the ancient Byzantine wall. Ehhh, it was mildly interesting… We all board a boat next and once again I proceed to demonstrate my prowness for sleeping without regards to location, time of day, temperature, comfort, or present company.

Once we safely dock (and don’t ask me where – I am clueless to our present location at this moment), we waddle our way over some ancient soup kitchen. The gatekeeper refuses to let us in. I’m sure my apathy would not have been quite so apparent had both my mind and body occupied the same state of being.

We also head to visit Ayup, home of the shrine of Ayyub al-ansari – companion of the Prophet. Apparently this place is the epicenter for ideal burial grounds, as grave sites become exponentially more expensive the closer to this shrine they are. Shrine was very intensively incensed – with incense, not anger. Also, once again, I fell victim to the brutally spiny elbows of fat Turkish grandmas.

One thing I noticed was the abundance of circumcision boys. Every young boy on the day of his circumcision, is dressed in a princely costume and paraded to different shrines, through the streets, and to parties. There was an exorbitant amount present of said unfortunates at this shrine. I wince in sympathy for their unknowing future suffering later today. I also tried to sneakily take a picture of one without appearing to be a stalkerish child molester, but this is the best I got:

Subtly holding a camera at one’s hip while whistling and admiring the neighboring floral arrangements doesn’t lend itself to artistically framed photos.

We part ways with Cem, Sherif Baba, and the odd looking British dude, and taxi ourselves over to the Spice Bazaar. There, we meet one of Omid’s friends in a jewelry shop. There, I also receive my first non-American guess at my ethnicity. Hooray! I can pass for Dutch/German apparently! Though, he also said that I looked like Claudia Shieffer, so I don’t know if I can really trust his judgment.

We go and dine at a nice restaurant for our last dinner together in Istanbul. Aww sadness. Our sentimental moping period was interrupted though by an idiotic waiter and bill confusion. After dinner, we split ways and several of us set out to explore Taksim Square, the hip-hip-hopping part of town. Packed streets, pumping music, and…Christmas decorations. Hmm, well I’m not the one to judge considering my lasted played playlist on my iPod was my Christmas one.

But whatevs. Later tonight, once back in the hotel after an interesting ride in a neon cab, I once again laid my claim over my favorite chair in the lobby to sit down and write a blog post. Unfortunately, I was distracted by two sleezy men trying to bring in Russian prostitutes to our hotel [the hotel refused]. Funnily enough it made me remember an incident earlier this trip, one of the first few nights in Istanbul, when I had returned back to the hotel a little earlier in the evening than the rest of the group. The front desk had questioned me as to my room number and asked to see my room key. Being tired and obliviously naïve, I thought nothing of it. In retrospect: does this mean I can pass for Russian?