Greetings from Istanbul!

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. 

View from the apartment window. We're on the fifth floor!

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! 

Bogazkesen Caddesi

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!

Great food! This cute little place is on the route I take to my lessons. :)

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