Life is what happens while you make plans to enjoy it. There are so many unique people on this earth, that something utterly fascinating is happening everywhere you look. This is by no means different when travelling. Actually it probably increases the chance of seeing some wild stuff exponentially.
The Irish traveller who was in town for one night (originally) was no exception.
I do have some pictures of this lad that I won't be posting, although this blog is mostly just for me these days (nobody has really read this since I went to Thailand), it's still on the internet and I'm about to tell a less-than-flattering story about the poor guy. Yes, he deserves some ridicule and yes, it's a hilarious story, but no, he doesn't deserve to have his personal information online in any capacity.
Here we go...
I was settling into my 4th or 5th night at the Hostel. This night (the hostel staff tried to do something "special" which cost extra money) was special. We had a belly dancer and a bbq meal. As soon as I clambered in to the common area from my afternoon nap, I could hear the twang of his Irish accent boisterously filling the room.
First thing he did when he saw me was make fun of the flannel shirt I was wearing, "where ya from lad?"
I replied, still a little foggy from the nap, "Uhhh, Canada, whats up?"
He goes, "Well no shit with that fookin shirt you're wearin'!"
I just laughed. It did kind of look lumberjack adjacent. I needed a couple beers to get on this guy's level.
And that's how I met Irish Kieran.
So I had a few beers, and we kept beakin' at each other. All in good fun.
Eventually the belly dancing show left and the regulars were left to fend for themselves. So we did the best we could and started talking about going to Taksim Square for a night of dodging Istanbul's finest scammers and trying to find any girl that isn't a hooker. Not as easy as it sounds.
A little background on the Irishman here: he was a teacher in the U.A.E. and he told us a story of this karaoke bar near where he was staying while teaching. He asked for a job bouncing at the club so he could drink for free. They initially said no, but he decided to stay and have a few drinks anyways. Eventually his turn to sing came up, but there was a mistake and the song he was prompted was "My Heart will Go On" by Celine Dion. So he sang the song anyways, was laughed at by the bar owners and they told him they would buy him a beer for every night he came back and sang that specific song, and only that song... of course he obliged and was greeted with a raucous "Celine!" every time he walked in the place. He didn't seem to mind.
We were singing some Karaoke that night and he didn't have an outstanding voice and turned down numerous attempts to get him to sing his signature song.
So, back to the Taksim bar hopping idea, it was starting to gather steam with about 6 or 7 of us when we pulled the pin and finally paid for our beers and left. Our strange assortment that night included a cool dutch guy, a hippyish polish guy who rode his bicycle to Istanbul, an Italian guy who had been staying at the same hostel for a week as well, two columbian kids who were dressed for a night at the dance clubs looking like a couple new jersey bros, an 18 year old Norwegian, the (now fully drunk) Irishman, and myself. Basically a united nations clown car.
We left our hostel and Irish immediately heads to the nearest bodega and buys like 3 packs of cigarettes and 4 bottles of beer. We wait for him to pay and I'm starting to think "maybe this isn't the wisest idea," but we soldier on down the street. It's generally frowned upon to drink in public here and you can for sure get arrested for public intoxication.
As if he was part of of a hidden camera show this guy stumbles a bit with his drinkin' beer in one hand and his bag of beers in the other, takes a tumble on the street and smashes all but the one beer that was open all over the road. He was incredibly proud that he kept the opened one afloat though. But at this point I kind of made the executive decision in my mind to cut this dude loose. I didn't want to get involved with the crooked cops in a crooked Muslim country where the laws were getting more right-winged authoritarian by the day.
So I started walking a little faster, until he couldn't really keep pace. He was easily distracted by one of the endless business barker guys on the street that try to get you into their ripoff restaurants or bars. The Dutch guy, Matt, eventually got an Uber and we took off for a forgetful night in Taksim. Leaving the Irish dude to his own devices.
Apparently we made the right call as when we got back at like 1am, the news from the hostel bartender was that Irish had started asking around for stronger stuff everywhere, and then taken another big spill and broken a couple ribs, spent a few hours in the hospital, and was now sleeping off his injuries in his dorm bed. Jesus what a wreck.
He slept for 2 more days and I never saw him again.
Here's to you, hope you found your home Celine, wherever that may be.
