Taksim

Taksim is the "party" area of Istanbul. A kind of "Zona Rosa" in Bogota. BEAUTIFUL Art Deco buildings, and people people people everywhere, on a monday evening! We had a delicious dinner, only Meze, where the menu is a huge tray with little samplers of the plates. DELICIOUS. We met a very nice girl from Montreal, Marie Andree, and I have to admit, she would have been the perfect girlfriend for Ali... I insisted I wanted to go to a little Gay Bar I saw on the way to the restaurant called Sugarcubes. I wanted to see how openly gay men behaved. Nothing different, great music, great taste and faaabulous queens anywhere. But, I have to say, it does take balls to be openly gay here. Most of the men are bisexual and they definitely look at you and even make proposals to you in the street. They are all married. I guess they do not see themselves as gay men if they are top or married. So, chapeau to the handsome men at Sugarcubes. The waiter was wearing a T-Shirt that said "Cocaina de Pablo Escobar / de puta madre" and I was wearing my Bogota shirt.... Oy... the Colombian reputation precedes me...