This past Friday I experienced one of the most pleasant ways to spend a friday night: singing.
I like singing. In fact, the last sentence is probably an understatement. I love singing. I sing in the shower, in my car, and even in public (much to
the dismay of my brother.) Despite this, I'd never been karaoking before. I mean, not for realz. I did do a little bit in the Philippines, but that was in a home setting. This time, it was public. And in a different language.
My friday started off quite usual: got up late for school, almost missed the mini-bus, and barely made it in before the second bell rang. As I was sitting in first period (or ders in turkish) I remembered that my friend, Pinar (more about this one later) had told me about going karaoking tonight. So the whole day, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting till the time came for me to unleash my singing voice (I had forgotten the fact that all songs would be in turkish.)
During one of our numerous breaks, I went up to the 5th level to ask Pinar about the deets. We were to meet at 7 PM in front of school, and from there we would go to yesilkoy, where said karaoke event was going to take place.
After school, I enjoyed a surprisingly delicious meal with my friend Asli at Pizza Days. Pizza Days is a fastfood place located in Atrium, the mall across the street from my school. We talked of this and that, and had a generally fun time. We even ran into Pinar with her daddy (she just got her flu shot.) Before I knew it, it was 5:30 PM and time for me to get my butt moving. I caught the mini-bus home, and talked the parental units. They were letting me go, but only if I called them every few hours with details and etc, etc. Ah, parents. Gotta love 'em.
Anyways,
I half-hazardly got ready, not really sure what one
wears to a Karaoke "party." Should I go fancy? Casual? Fancy, but with a street edge? Finally, with 15 minutes till seven, I closed my eyes, chose a dress out of my closet, and put on my purple tights. I ran out the door, and arrived 5 minutes late, as per usual. My friend, waiting, all groaned as I finally rounded the corner to school. "Oh, Aliye."
"Nevermind, I'm here," I quipped. We jumped in the car waiting, and speedily drove to Yesilkoy.
The place we were dropped unceremoniously at was actually a place I had had dinner with my family once. Funny. Across the street lay our venue: The Green Hause. Ha.
The View From The Balcony
We climbed the 2 flights of stairs to the top of the place. It was a large room set up with a projector on the ceiling and a screen for the words to appear. On one side of the walls, there were low booth seats, covered in dark purple shiny material, vinyl like. In the back, there was a mini-balcony with two small benches and a table squished in between. My friends dumped our stuff on the opposite wall of the booths, on a medium sized table. My friends then informed me that this was actually party of somebody's that they didn't really know. I didn't ask. All I knew is I was there to party. More and more people started arriving, and the room filled up. This was going to be a good night.
Birthday Boy: Atila?
Elif and Pinar
After kissing everyone on both cheeks that I knew and didn't knew, I looked at the song selection. Finally realizing that there wasn't going to be any english sung, I surrendered myself to the idea of singing in turkish. If only my father had been there, he would have been proud.
The party got started around 8 PM, and the drinks started arriving at 8:30 PM. The lovely thing about Turkey is that people don't abuse the low drinking age (18.) With drinks in hand, people began to croon and follow on with the words on the screen. Some dancing even started. My friends tried to teach me how to dance, turkish style, but my robotic shoulders simply refused. "It's not your boobs, it's your shoulders," they would shout over the loud music. I kinda just went along with it, snapping my fingers and doing "the serving tray."
This guy was the sickest drummer.
As the designated photographer, I went around, taking pictures of the smokers, the drinkers, the dancers, and talkers, and just kind of absorbed the atmosphere. It really was lovely, floating around like Casper the Friendly Ghost. People even spoke english to me and I felt like I'd finally gotten to be, you know, turkish.
We sung the night away, even though we'd knew we'd have sore throats the next morning. Time decided that it was going home, and so we located our coats, purses, and lens caps and drove to our respective homes.
It was simply the most magnificent evening I'd had in a while.
And I love my friends for inviting me.
Lub these kidz
I know how I'm celebrating my 19th birthday...
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