Istanbul

The night was already about to turn when Stefa got a call from his brother. It was a day full of delicious fish bread rolls by the sea, black tea orgies on tiny chairs and Shisha smoking in hidden ancient hangouts. I could get used to this orient-lifestyle i thought, if only all these mosques wouldn‘t wake me up every day at 4:30 am! My host was looking at me with a big, fat grin on his face, still listening to the voice on the other side of the line. 
We need to go, he says, Kadir needs our help. Five minutes later we‘re on our way in his crappy old car, he tells me we need to quickly pick up one of Kadir‘s girlfriends. Apparently her husband, who is some high ranking guy in the military, found out about their illicit hanky-panky and is now, not amused, on his way home from the barracks. Ten minutes later we‘re at Kadirs house, he jumps in the car and says that we have about two hours before the guy gets there, so we should be fine, but you never know with this madness of traffic here in Instanbul.

I‘m starting to feel my stress-hormones bubble, but up in the front seats, no sign of nervousness, the two brothers joke around and are laughing their asses off while we‘re speeding over the hole-filled streets of the suburbs. Turks seem never to take anything serious, everything is always a joke, it‘s kind of alleviating. When we get there the girl is already outside waiting for us, Kadir hurries with her into the house to get the few things she packed, while Stefa and me keep watch. She‘s only taking the most precious items, the rest she has to leave behind.

Feeling like little children who snatched a toy from someone else, the endorphins shooting through our bodies, we‘re screaming like wild howler monkeys out of the windows. Not only one pedestrian was taken by surprise and jumped frightened aside as we drove by. Cruising the dark alleys back to the center we are stopping to get some fresh oysters and beers to celebrate our successful quest. What a strange but fun night.

No matter how long you stay in a place, you will always leave with unique questions unanswered. Where‘s all the trash going that people throw on the streets during the day. Why is the Asian part of Istanbul ten times more crowded than the European one. And why does every Turkish man seem to have more than 5 girlfriends, plus wife. This is for sure a night neither of us will ever forget, the night we kidnapped the colonels wife, or maybe its just special to me and those guys do this every other day.