Wow, where do I begin! I am now in Istanbul! Feels like a
dream, but it's reality!
After a day and a half of flights combined with a fairly
lengthy layover at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, while running on a grand
total of two hours of sleep we arrived in Istanbul at around 12:30am local time
on Friday the 13th!
Following a very easy visa stamping and baggage claim we hailed
a taxi to take us to our apartment in Karakoy, Istanbul. I can't even describe
how overwhelming and surreal that taxi ride was, as we got closer to the city
and the different smells and ancient landmarks revealed themselves. That's something I'll
never forget! I don't even know what was going through my mind at that time.
The taxi driver drove like a crazy person but we arrived at the apartment in one
piece around 1am. We got settled as quickly as possible, Skyped with our people
back home and then CRASHED...which was short-lived because the call to prayer
woke me up at 5am! I knew it would be loud but wow, it was very loud... very
beautiful to listen to though! It didn't wake my dad up at all. Bizarre.
Anyways, I was able to fall asleep again after that until almost 11am. We got
out the door shortly after waking up, with the intention of eating breakfast at
a particular cafe recommended to us by the landlord. We didn't find the cafe,
but had a very nice walk-about, getting familiarized with the neighbourhood.
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| View from the apartment window. We're on the fifth floor! |
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| A bit more of the view.... |
After that we decided to map out our route to Raquy's office, where I was to
have my first lesson that afternoon. We stood on the corner of the main road
parallel to ours with a Lonely Planet map, looking like hardcore tourists! We
found a straightforward route (which is, unavoidably, entirely uphill....like
mega steep uphill) and followed it all the way to Istiklal Caddesi. Raquy's
office is just off of Istiklal, so once we knew we could get there no problem,
we turned around and picked up just a few groceries on our way back to the
apartment. I won't lie, I really like going to get my groceries for an
apartment that's mine! I feel like such a legit adult right now. :P So after
bringing our groceries back and hanging out for a bit, it was time to make our
way to my first lesson with Raquy! AHH, so exciting! I'm so glad we planned to
get started the day of my arrival! Better to dive right in, right away. My
first impression of Raquy was that she is such a welcoming and open person. The
fact that she's been so accepting of my strange project has made things so easy
and relaxed. We met, chatted for a bit and then got started! It was so much
fun, playing one of her compositions WITH her in person, she on the darbuka and
me with my feet on my "drum". It was pretty hilarious and awkward
walking through the streets with that wooden box under my arm. I'm sure some
people were wondering what in the world that thing was. Anyways, Raquy was
totally okay with me leaving my "drum" at her office so I won't have
to lug that thing uphill every day for 6 weeks!
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| Bogazkesen Caddesi |
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| Istiklal Caddesi - Istanbul's famous pedestrian walkway, lined with shops and vendors. |
So, there's been an exciting
twist in my adventure. I am now also studying the darbuka! Like...with my hands!
:O Raquy feels that it can only help my understanding of the technique and
rhythms so that I can better transfer them over to feet and I couldn't agree
with her more! It makes perfect sense and I'm loving every minute of it! So
exciting! And very challenging, which is great.
So for my first lesson, we did a lot of question/answering
where Raquy would play something on the darbuka in 8 and I would repeat it back
to her with my feet. It's a really great exercise! And then for the darbuka
portion of the lesson we covered three different hits - the dum, tek, and 1st
finger hit on the left hand.
For my second lesson we did more question/answering and also
playing together, but this time we worked on some stuff in a beat cycle of ten.
That was challenging because I'm not super comfortable with ten, but now after
just a couple of days I feel like I'm starting to get settled into that cycle.
Also, during my second lesson, I learned the 3rd finger hit on the darbuka for
the left hand and then we combined all four basic hits to create different
rhythms in 9, as well as 10 and 3. And THEN my third lesson was just nuts!
Raquy's teacher Bunyamin was at the office. We played Dokuz together for him so
he could see what it is I'm doing with this project. He enjoyed it and also had
some great suggestions for exercises that I could do! And then he started
showing me with his feet some things that I could do! Hahaha! That was so
great. Then he picked up the darbuka and he and Raquy just went crazy for a
while! It nearly brought me to tears. I couldn't believe I was witnessing these
two masters playing together! And then Raquy told me to pick up a darbuka and
hold a rhythm in 10. The two of them went crazy again. It was such good
practice and experience for me to be able to hold rhythms for drummers like
them. Then we switched to 5...and if I recall correctly we did 9 as well.
Crazy! That must have gone on for well over an hour! Wowwww. I am honestly
still on a high from that! As if this is real!
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| Great food! This cute little place is on the route I take to my lessons. :) |
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| Skeeter bites. Okay, I know they don't look that bad in the picture, but trust me, they're awful! |
Aside from my lessons and practicing, we've done a bit of
sight-seeing and certainly a lot of eating! Raquy has taken us to Taksim square
and a farmers market in Tarlabasi (where I bought a kilo of fresh figs and a
kilo of olives for about 5 Canadian dollars! Ha!). We definitely have tons of
plans to sight-see and do the whole "tourist" thing. It is hard to
find time though, with my project stuff going on. I came to the realisation the
other day that it just isn't practical to eat out for every meal (not that I
was planning on doing that). Budget-wise it's not a big deal, but time-wise it
makes no sense at all. I really do prefer to have a fully stocked kitchen so I
can cook meals, anyway. Also, I'm trying to wake up early-ish in the morning
but I'm still jet-lagged and can't seem to get to bed early enough, and then
when I do get to bed I don't feel like sleeping! Arghhhh. I think that once I'm
100% flipped over, time management will become much easier and more efficient.
I drank coffee at 9:30 two nights ago, which was a BAD IDEA. Had a terrible
sleep. On top of that, the mosquitoes here apparently really enjoy Canadian
blood. I'm covered in the itchiest bites on my wrists and behind my ears! So
I'm not enjoying that at all. But aside from that, my first 4 full days in
Istanbul have been amazing and I really look forward to what the next 40 days
have in store! :D
