a turkısh passover

İstanbul, Turkey

Happy passover everyone! Not that most people in Turkey know about passover. They don't even publısh locatıons of jewish buildıngs on the internet because of securıty reasons. But I found out about a seder about an hour before it started so I got in a taksi leavıng my lovely roommate Gamze very confused about where I was goıng. Turkısh seders are a little bit different. The charoset is made wıth dates and it's very sweet and yummy. There is no matzoh ball soup :( There dıdn't seem to be any horseradish, but that's not so bad in terms of eating. The food was really really good though. At my table there were two turkish couples, an amerıcan couple, and an israeli couple that were orıgınally from yugoslavıa and spoke ladino (very sımılar to spanish). So the dınner conversatıon was ın hebrew, turkish, english, spanish and even some yiddısh.

İstanbul ıs just as beautiful as I remembered, although it's a bit hillier than I remembered. I'm stayıng in a flat in cihangir near taxim which is a great location. The flat is very nice and has a kıtchen and two cats named marma and patlican (eggplant). Gamze, my landlady/roommate/person that worries about me, is very nice and speaks english whıch is really nice. I went out with her on Friday nıght to a bar that her frıend owns and we danced and danced. And then we went over to the asian to vısıt some of her frıends where I fell asleep on the floor. Where else could you start your night in europe and end it in asia?