When I return to my room and take a shower, dizzied with the amount of oxygen and relaxation, I drift into a peaceful, delicious sleep that I desperately need due to two nights of little sleep. When I get up all the women have returned from their visit to Sait Faik Abasiyanik's house, which has been a museum for over 50 years. SFA is the writer, who started story-writing tradition in Turkish literature. Since I will stay on the island for two more days, I will visit it later.
The wonderful group of women I vacationed with..
I am fully refreshed with my power nap and Aytul and I head down to the waterfront, where we will have dinner tonight. The group has chosen Antigoni restaurant, named after the daughter/wife of Alexander the Great, who ruled the islands in the distant past. We stroll through the neighborhoods first, all of which almost run down to the waterfront via steep slopes. Some of the homes are huge big mansions either inherited from generation to generation since the Ottoman times or purchased by the richest neuvea rich, to be used as single family homes.
This mansion houses a coupel that rarely comes to Adalar...
Some of these homes have 15-20 rooms occupied by a couple and part of the year at that. What a waste and arrogance: I heard for instance that one of the mansions on the way to the Teacher's guest house belongs to the owner of the NTV a new TV station in Turkey. Other mansions have been turned into apartments and used as family apartment buildings, several siblings and cousins sharing the building after inheriting it from the family; that is more tolerable per my ethics... Others were built as modern apartment buildings from the outset perhaps during the middle of the last century. These dwellings are the ones that middle to upper middle class Istanbulites can afford to buy or rent. Even apartment buildings' entrances are adorned with a variety of climbing vines of jasmine, honey suckle, lilies among others that make the neighborhoods a large garden of flowering plants.
Sidewalks turned into gardens, European style...
There is an elementary school on the island, two vegetable stores (manav), two convenience stores (bakkal), one butcher, fire squadron, offices of forestry administration, and three piers, one for the city boats, one for the seabuses, and the last is for the private boats and a small square for the horse carriages since motor vehicles are not allowed on the island unless they get a permission from the Adalar Municipality to carry materials for renovation purposes. Thus, the elderly on this island either walks very competently up the steep slopes or take the horse carriages. The young enjoy biking as well, and there is a bike rental store along the water, too, of course. The bulk of economy on the island is the restaurants, cafes, patisseries, and coffee shops, in short eateries. All of Istanbul, especially the Asian bank residents perceive Adalar as a to go place even for a brief dinner or a full night out, even in the winter as long as the boats are running since the winds from the south (Lodos) or north (Poyraz) may cut off the connection between the Adalar and Istanbul for brief periods of time in the winter time.
Another mansion divided into multiple apartments...
The eateries on the waterfront have discovered a very convenient way of allowing the customers be warm inside their store but also enjoy everything of the outside by zipping up transparent plastic walls around their store! Ingenious invention in this land, the peoples of which are all desperately in love with enjoying everything about life while being outdoors... Once the wind and rain take over the islands in two days, I will also enjoy this at Ergun's cafe where I will meet a lot of Greek and Turkish locals over breakfast and dinner.
A boat is hanging down the ceiling of Antigoni restaurant
We finally make our way to Antigoni restaurant. They have prepared an L-shaped table for us 24 women. As we flood the restaurant with the vivacious high school spirit that have taken over us all, the servers are a bit dumb-founded not knowing what to make of this 50-60 year-older women. They are all well dressed with elegant but humble make-up and hair-do (except I with my casual strolling attire), they do look like professionals, but their mood is elated to such an extent, one might perceive them as tipsy without any alcohol.
Bottle of national Turkish alcoholic beverage, raki turned into a lamp at Antigoni...
Our servers don't know yet, that this group and any other group from any special high school like theirs and mine go into this tipsy-out-of-bliss by going back to their wonderful high school years. This freedom of being 16-18 again and acting and feeling like we did back then every time we get together is an exceptional treasure we carry with us. As our food is served very slowly, we savor not only the food, but also each other's company with heart-felt conversation over our individual memories and their shared memories. I feel I become more and more part of the group as the hours go by. Ozden is the musical star of the group, leading us all in our singing. But I must say, the group has many musical stars, although they leave the leadership to Ozden. Our songs follow the line of songs played by the restaurant, perhaps from an online repertoire.
All of a sudden a violinist appears out of the blue. The restaurant music stops, violin kicks in, and Ozden and the violinist truly lead this phenomenal women's choir. I am ecstatic to be able to sing such songs from the Ottoman era that I had not heard nor sung for several decades. We are all in our teens and early 20s in our shared ecstasy. Soon, our singing is coupled with group dancing. As the time goes by, it is not only us, who are euphoric to this extent that has nothing to do with alcohol, there is very little of it in fact, but our servers and the violinist also are ecstatic with enjoyment.
With its mansions, apartment buildings, and humble homes, Burgazada...
Ozden drags our elderly chief server, who clearly seems to be a traditional man into our line dancing, to which he doesn't resist! Our violinist is cracking up to what is unfolding before his eyes, most likely he hasn't seen before... I sense, this is going to be some story the Adalar servers will keep telling for some time with statements such as "Do you remember those women, who had come from all over the country and had had a blast of time at Antigoni? There were professors and engineers, and attorneys among them you know. They were quite something!" Indeed, this wonderful group of women is quite something in this stretch of time from 7:30 to past midnight, having the most genuine and humble fun spreading their happiness to all that were around. I will never forget a couple that was sitting on the outside patio, who moved to an inside table to be closer to us to such an extent, when it came to telling high school stories, the gentleman hollered to the story-teller "Louder please, I can't hear!"
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| Delighful gathering with this wonderful group of women |
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