One of the more frustrating things that has happened to me recently was that I spent a good portion of my Sunday afternoon uploading photographs and writing 4 or 5 new posts. I told Chris that I updated some things and when he went to look at it, poof! Nothing was there. Some problem with the software blah blah blah. It made me very sad and I'm not sure when I'll feel ok enough about it to try writing all that stuff again.

But...Since I'm here, I might as well write about our GREAT weekend! Friday night, I was invited to an expat ladies night, where I met some new foreign women and I discovered a new and drinkable Turkish wine, Kav....I had just enough, but not too much so that I was able to go to work the next day and do "fun projects" with my kids...

Saturday night was a mystery to me. One of Chris' coworkers was hosting a party/amateur photography exhibition which we were able to attend for a little while (and have some of her amazing home-made Sangria) before we left to go on a date about which Chris was being very secretive. We went over to Beyoglu, a fun nightlife area in Istanbul, where Chris took me to a fabulous Thai restaurant that has been described as the best in Istanbul, and we were not disappointed! After dinner, and after leading me through the winding streets of Beyoglu to "throw me off track", we ended up at Babylon, a club that tends to be the go-to venue for most of the foreign bands that come through here, to see Buckwheat Zydeco, a band I had heard of but never had the pleasure to hear personally. They were amazing and if you ever have the opportunity to see them live, do it. Here's a video, not of the show we saw, but another one at a Blues Festival elsewhere in Turkey. The guy with the accordian is Buckwheat himself, a mature gentleman who was really energetic and quite funny too. The two best parts of our show were 1) when a guy in the audience wearing and playing his own washboard chest thing that is the "Zydeco instrument" was pulled up onstage and played a song with the band and 2) when a group of about 7 expat-looking older guys walked in in full Blues Brothers style - dark suits and sunglasses, some of them with bow ties and some with long scarves. We had a great vantage point to see all of this from up on the balcony.



Apologies if this post isn't at all entertaining, I think I used up all my funny on the posts that never made it ... Sorry!