I’ve got my ticket for India! Leaving on Sunday for Mumbai. More details about India and the last week to follow, but first of all, what better way to spend my last night in Istanbul than with a party at our apartment?

I present No Couples Allowed Party 2009:

See you there?

Last night we went to a bar called Badehane to listen to a Gyspy band play. Hatice said it had a Balkan feel to it. The place was small and packed full of people. The music was loud and mostly catchy. Some hippie guy that could whistle really loud kept whistling and clapping. A drunk guy standing behind me was kissing his girl and didn’t realize that the leg he was groping was Hatice’s and not the leg of the girl he was kissing. Or maybe he did?

Here’s a short sound clip of three songs so you can hear what it sounded like (for the uninitiated, just click on the triangle to play the song):

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This is the band:

Before we went there, we went to my favorite cheap and delicious Turkish food buffet:

The world loves Guns ‘n Roses, but not as much as it loves Bon Jovi. It’s a universal truth. I write this as “It’s My Life” wails from my roommate’s cell phone he listens to while taking a shower.

This is not an isolated event, and it is not just because Spanish Bryan (pictured above, second from the right) was actually part of an exceedingly awesome Spanish hair band called “Crom XXL” that played for 11 years and got a good bit of media coverage. Everywhere I go there is universal love for Bon Jovi; on the radio, in karaoke bars, in regular bars, private parties, whatever. South America, Central/Eastern Europe, and Turkey. Don’t let me down, India.

I’m going to play with occasionally posting quick bits of information on the blog that look like these – not a full blog entry, but more like a tweet on Twitter or a Facebook status update. Sometimes I have short things I want to say that don’t deserve a full entry. You can comment on them, too.