Today is Friday, July 10th-

These past few days have also been a whirl for us. I am finding that I am getting a bit impatient to leave Istanbul tomorrow morning (Saturday). This is a huge city of 14 million people and the city literally never ends (kind of like the song that never ends). There are always people everywhere and crowds everywhere. I guess I'm not used to that. I still might be able to see myself living here, but would have to get used to the crowds and people. Learning the language would also help as well.

Two days ago (Wednesday) we met up with Munir's friend Ozan and also his cousin (more like 3rd or 4th cousin), Reem and her two boys Mustafa and Faisal. Munir met Ozan last summer at an IT conference when he came here and they just hit it off. It was neat to meet Ozan in person. Reem was quite nice too. Her and her husband and two boys are still Iraqis, although have been living in Istanbul for 8 or 9 years. Her husband is Turkman Iraqi (one of the ethnic groups in Iraq who are actually Turkish origin and mother tongue is Turkish rather than Arabic). She said it takes time to get the Turkish passport. Her boys speak fluent Turkish and hardly much Arabic (even though she speaks to them in Arabic). I believe we may be seeing them again today (Friday) as we will be leaving tomorrow morning. Munir, me and Aadil came to meet them all at one of the Malls (Kanyon) for coffee and something to eat. Nesta wanted to stay back in the apartment in Taksim. One thing I noticed is the security here in Istanbul. There are security guards checking cars and opening car trunks before they enter the mall parking lots. Once you enter the malls you have to release your bags and put them through the scanner and get security checked. It was a bit weird, as we don't have this in Abu Dhabi. I understand tho why they do this, because there are threats of bombings in Istanbul and there have been bombs in the past so they are doing it for precaution. I think the reason there are no bombs (yet and hope there are never any in the future) in Abu Dhabi is because either you are a local Emirati or an expatriate from another country on visa. I think the security is pretty tight in Abu Dhabi in its own way - probably from the way the society is. Here it would be hard to keep track of 14 million people and there are many groups trying to disrupt the Republic of Turkey and cause harm to it. (ie. Kurdish separatists, Armenians, Islamic Extremists, etc)

That evening, we had to rush back to the apartment, as Nesta was babysitting Aadil while Munir and I attended a Whirling Dervish ceremony/concert in the Sultanahmet area. We went there and it turned out to be an old hamam building (hamam is Turkish bath). Beautiful setting. Inside we got our tickets and sat in our reserved seats in the first row (we sat in a circle). there must have been around 150 people watching. First came the Sufi music players with their instruments. They played for around 1/2 hour. The whirling dervish came in after that and performed for the other 1/2 hour. Very interesting and spiritual.

The next day (yesterday - Thursday) I decided to visit my law firm office here in Istanbul, just out of curiousity more than anything. It was interesting, I met the receptionist and the office manager showed me around their office. Munir and the boys were outside at a nearby cafe while I was inside. Again, upon entering the building there was security. Back home in Abu Dhabi at my office building we just walk right in with no problems. I had to get an electronic pass and then put my bags through security. Imagine doing that every day!

I went down to meet Munir and the boys at the cafe and the owner, Onur (he called himself Victor) was really friendly and spoke good English. We stayed for abot 1 1/2 hours as it started to pour rain.

Last night we decided to visit the Anatolian side (Asian side) of Istanbul. I really felt I was in the Middle East then. It is more conservative than the European side and I saw many more women wearing hijab cover. We took a boat ride for 1 hour up the Bosphorus, first along the Asia side coast, and then when we reached the second bridge, we crossed over and went along the European side of the Bosphorus. And then crossed back to Usudar on the Asian side to disembark. It was very interesting to see the beautiful houses along the shores (they are very very costly, literally tens of millions of dollars each in value), as well as other landmarks and buildings.