Night on the Bogaziçi

Last Saturday night was by far one of the most fun and craziest nights of my life. I am going to be brutally honest with this post even though it will cause some family and friends to question, “Who is this guy. I don’t know him anymore!” I started off the night freezing my gluteus maximus off waiting for a boat that was late getting to the European side of the Bogaziçi. Once the boat came, I sacrificed 55 YTL (Yeni Türkçe Lira—New Turkish Lira) and received Fez, unlimited snack food, baklava, alcoholic beverages, nonalcoholic beverages and plenty of good/crazy memories that will be long lasting.




The night started off with wine, which is surprising for a college party. It was actually a tasty red wine. I drank it slowly thanks to the tips given by mother and father when I celebrated my 21st with them. I wish I could say the same for others. I could tell that people weren’t taking it as slow as I was. The party dancing got started off fairly quickly, but I didn’t witness that at first. I was busy outside on the deck with Em, Grace, Katie, and others taking pictures of the mansions along the Bogaziçi. The visuals were amazing. I just wish that my sister was nice, learned how to share, and let me borrow her sweet camera for this trip. My camera had a hard time getting good pictures when it was dark. I did manage to get a couple of good ones. I now want to live in one of them.

When I came back the party was in full swing. Conversation and laughter was coming from the people sitting down around the tables. I actually got entangled in a couple of them. Funny how much people loosen up in conversation when they loose a little bit of inambition due to alcohol. Then the party became a bit livelier. I was talking to the Erasmus students who helped organize this and they tried to explain how they thought they bought enough wine to last the night. It didn’t even last 90 minutes. I admit I had three glasses but there were others who horded entire bottles. I actually saw someone who I am not going to mention who actually stole a bottle from the bar and was hogging it all to herself. I also saw another guy, who I didn’t know, do the same thing. It was tasty, but since when did college students drink wine. I guess I am a biased Midwesterner, or maybe it is just because Turks and Europeans are more refined then us Americans.

I must say though the music was good, and it was all great fun. Most of it was American music, so I knew how to dance to it. However, the local Turks were not quite used to it, so I was busy teaching a guy how to dance to Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean. That was interesting. I also was enjoying good conversation with the girls I came with. We had fun exchanging fuzz, making fools of ourselves, exchanging gang signs, and relearning from others how to swing dance. I was also introduced to new game that they played in Holland. Karl showed me. Basically there are a couple of teams and every team has two people. They would line up in rows along a line, team by team, and opposite from them would be two cups of beer. The people playing would have to run to their beer, down it, place the cup back where it was, run around the cup ten times, and then run back. Then the next player does the same. You can probably guess what happened from that. I didn’t participate, but I did film it for future black mailing purposes. However I didn’t get the funny stuff that supposedly happened later. After all the wine was gone, they switched to beer. This is where I am extremely thankful for celebrating my 21st with my parents because they warned me about the possible nasty side effects of mixing drinks, most specifically the mixing of wine and beer. I was busy indulging in the snack food before I went to the ever so popular Efes beer. Also I drank it slowly. I wish others did the same for reasons I will mention later. However, as the night went on people started to get drunk and loose a lot of self-control. I saw one of my friends, whose name was ß@#OÇ&†å, literally straddle this one guy in the corner and had his way with him. It took the guy a couple seconds to realize what he was now allowed to do and started to do the same thing. Both of their hands were all over each other. This might sound bad, but it was actually quite funny. However I did get a little embarrassed for her since she wasn’t able to. Then I also saw one of my mates by the name of $ΩÂØ∏‰ with ÏÁ‰◊ı±Œ all over each other while dancing. However this act was a little bit more tasteful then the act just previously mentioned. I was also later approached by other friends, notably Penina and Jacky who asked me, “can you please try to get that creepy guy away from Ωßå∑®, and start dancing with her so that he will leaver her alone?” I agreed because he was going tiptoeing over the line that shouldn’t be crossed. But it only just started.

Apparently, when drunk, our Turkish comrades got intense. They were having fun but they were definitely taking advantage over some of my drunk female friends who were too shy in saying no. I have to respect the Turkish woman that night because they had no problem telling a man off when he was going to far on the dance floor. My friends however ended up being to polite when doing it, so the message was never received. This is where I came into play. I would have to be the one to tell the guy that he was doing too much because I was perhaps the most sober male there. I did drink a bit, yes, but I was smart and spread my drinks out and I actually ate my fair share of the baklava. The person who I had to save the most though was Grace. She wasn’t drunk at all but she had trouble saying “Siktir Git!” which is fuck off in Turkish. Now, I am not saying that was the correct thing to say, but she wasn’t assertive enough to get the guys named Murat to stop grinding up against her. It’s funny though. Every guy named Murat that she has encountered has been labeled as a creep by her. Bad luck I suppose. Anyway she owes me huge, because the only was to get this one guy off her was by literally dancing with him so that she could get away. I sacrificed some of my masculinity that night, and how did she repay me? She took a picture of it and posted it on facebook the other day. To bad it didn’t show my disgust in the act…

The wine and beer started going badly for a lot of people, along with the alcohol. One girl who I know started dancing with me and when she got closer, she must have seen the beautiful blue eyes and started forcefully making out with me. After a brief session, I decided that she was in need of fresh air, so I took her outside (I was in need as well). She continued to try and to make out with me though but was eventually called by her friends (who I must eventually thank for preventing it to be an even more awkward situation) to go inside. I took that opportunity to hide in the safety of the friends I came with who weren’t drunk at all. We were perhaps the only group that could walk straight. Later on though the wine and the beer mixture had their full affect and a lot of girls were getting sick from it and had to make trips down to the bathroom below deck. I remained upstairs enjoying the time as best as I could, eating the baklava that people weren’t eating because of sickness, and dancing with some girls who asked to be rescued. When the boot finally parked itself, I had to escort one of my friends that did not look good at all back to the Superdorm. She was got sick at the party and needed an escort so Em and me decided to escort her back to the dorm. I don’t hold it against her though. I blame the situation more then the people personally. When you’re on a boat for five hours with unlimited booze with your friends drinking, you’re inviting the consequences with it. Add it a rocky boat trip and no view due to fog outside (which limited the sights leaving only drinking to be a viable option for entertainment to some). We got her home though.

The very next day I received about a half-dozen facebook and skype messages all from different people thanking me for my services during the crazy night before. There would have been more though if others could remember the eventful night. Overall, I had a lot of fun. I had enough baklava that my face broke out the next morning (no regrets), I enjoyed some nice wine along with good music, had some great dialogue, and showed off my moves on the dance floor (along with learning a few new ones) and helped others enjoy the night as well.