The Rape Forest and Beyond

Today was a long, exhausting day. Saturday, not so much.

After that crazy party that I managed to somewhat accurately summarize at an ungodly hour Saturday morning, I slept until 2:00pm Saturday afternoon. My suitemate, of course, had to Skype fight with his girlfriend at 10:00am. He talks so loudly that the girls upstairs can hear him. 

Saturday was an incredibly lazy day until around 10:00pm, when I went to Taksim with a few others to try and find this place called "Araf" that allegedly played Balkan DJ music. We took the university shuttle bus there, and I had the distinct privilege of sitting among a group of sleazy Turkish guys who were creepily fawning over these two Chinese girls they were with. I have seen this group around before, and they're just a generally frustrating group: Turkish Bros. I mention them because I wanted to complain about something that troubles me a great deal about younger Turkish guys of a certain type and their behavior toward their girlfriends. They are really into this whole semi-headlock style of walking with their ladyfriends, where the girl is actually completely under their control. Usually this is done either with a hand around the back of the neck, which is such a raw expression of male dominance it is disgusting, or they have their arm so far over the girl's shoulder that she is basically in a headlock. It is gross, annoying, and from the looks of the girls, not something they enjoy. Usually this is done by guys in aggressive V-neck shirts with the crappy haircut that I will have to photograph for you to see. 

We ate at Seventh Floor Terrace again, and this time noticed that in addition to "Wegetable Salad" and "Manifoods," the menu also featured "Cigarette Pie," their translation of my beloved Sigara Böreği. Also "Brain" is listed on the menu with no qualifier. After leaving we headed toward Galata Tower because one of us thought it was that way. It wasn't, and we found it 30 minutes later and after asking directions from an ice cream guy. He was really friendly and even wrote them out for me. He said he used to work that way. So we followed his directions, but a grammatical idiosyncrasy involving the verb "to pass" meant that we ended up in the wrong place, and again asked directions until we found it. There is a saying in Turkish, "You can ask your way to Baghdad." Truth. Turns out the other possible understanding of his directions was the correct one. The place, called "Araf," was on the top floor of an apartment building. I love that. The ground floor and the top floors are usually bars or clubs, and people live in between. 

This place was a blast. It had low ceilings, loud techno and soul music, and a great crowd of Turkish people, mostly in their late 20s or early 30s by the looks of it, dancing enthusiastically to James Brown remixes and smoking like chimneys. We danced with them as long as we could before leaving to catch the 2:00am shuttle back to campus. We had to get up early for our trip to the Belgrade Forest. We will definitely go back. 

The Belgrade Forest is a massive forest north of the new business district, located in Sarıyer. It has been an officially protected area for at least 250 years, and for most of that time was a favorite destination for officials, picnickers, and the sultans who would day trip the shit out of the place. Whenever we got closer to paved roads in the park, there were tons of picnickers. The Belgrade Forest also has a reputation for being the Rape Forest, according to Alison's boyfriend. We aren't sure why. Probably because lots of rapes occur there. But needless to say, many an inappropriate joke was made as we passed narrow paths and abandoned picnic sites. The purpose of the trip was to check out the old Ottoman waterworks in the area, with our tour guide being an adventure tourism business owner who also knows a ton about the city's water history. Mission accomplished, and in a much more linear and tolerable fashion than the Edirne trip or the trip through Fatih.

Almost as soon as we got off the bus, a crazy old Turkish man wearing a light brown blazer with a cane topped by a deer's antler in one hand and prayer beads in the other approached us and wanted to improvise some poetry for us about the forest. It was unintelligible, but we all agreed that it was good, if for no other reason than that we want to be that guy someday: 70+ years old, drinking in the forest, and free-styling mad rhymes at foreign kids. He just sauntered right up to us as our guide was talking, and patiently waited for a break in the conversation so he could poetry slam us. 

We checked out three big old dams and their reservoirs. They still provide some water to the city, but only about a day or two's worth each year. To get on one of them we had to walk across a narrow, slick marble wall that was about a foot wide. Water on the left, concrete ditch on the right. I was nervous as hell, even though it was only about eight feet high. It was worth it though. We visited the dams in the order they were built, and it was really obvious that over the course of the 100+ years during which they were built that major advances in engineering had been made. The last one featured that distinctive curve and angled structure that is so apparent in the Hoover Dam. After passing the last dam, we still had about an hour's hike to get to civilization, aka the tiny restaurant near the road where we would eat lunch. On the way there, we passed countless piles of cow shit and also a picnic organized by the Büyük Birlik Partisi.

This political party is the successor/political front for the right-wing, ultra-nationalist, Islamist contingent of the National Movement Party (MHP). This group split off from the MHP because the MHP wasn't religious enough. They are essentially fascists. But apparently they love picnics just as much as the next guy. I got stares like whoa when we walked past, because my beard resembles that of a leftist. These folks had their party flag hanging up over their tables, and it was really intensely mustachioed thereabouts. 

One remarkable characteristic of the forest, interestingly enough, is how young all the trees are. There are very few huge trees. This, we learned, is largely due to the fact that when Sultan Mahmud II tried to disband (re: slaughter) the Janissaries in the early 19th century, he only got about 6,000 of them. Many of the rest hid in the Belgrade Forest, robbing folks to survive. It got so bad that Mahmud II said fuck it and set the forest on fire, and had his new European-styled army posted on hills waiting to shoot the men fleeing the flames. We saw some of the trenches dug by the sultan's troops. That's one theory. My theory is that Turks who picnic know very little about fire safety. Case in point: they ignore the signs, which are everywhere, that say "DO NOT START FIRES." Also, the leave books of matches on the ground, which is covered in pine needles and dried leaves. 

All in all, the trip was incredibly sweaty but fun. We got to see Turkish families in their element: relaxing with family and friends, cooking good food and playing soccer or hanging in hammocks. Hammocks that were being rocked by someone. We passed one big family playing a guys vs. girls game of soccer, and our guide asked "Who is winning? The women?" The guys responded "Friendship is winning here." I really liked that. 

When we got back to the dorm, a few of us went and grabbed some sour cherry and pomegranate wine to enjoy while we did homework. It was delicious and incredibly weak, like about 8% alcohol by volume. Oh! Then we did scalp tick checks. Ticks are a thing here. Leslie just told me she got one today in Ankara. No problem though. But in Istanbul, people can get lyme disease, or worse, fucking hemmorhagic fever from Africa. Someone got that last year and died. So yeah, ticks are a thing here. 

My back sweats too much. I should get a surgery to fix that, or just stop wearing backpacks here. Nothing too hysterical happened today, it was just a decidedly pleasant and rape-free day spent in the woods.