My first night in Istanbul was somewhat hazy, following the previously mentioned Lufthansa flight, Oktoberfest and a few beers with Richard on arrival.

*I hate turkish keyboards, its a forensic process to find such crucial characters as an i and I am still not quite sure where the round bracket things are*

Richard introduced me well on that first night. A couple of beers, a stroll down some dimly lit alleys, a finger pointing to the point where he was nearly stabbed in the chest by knife wielding gypsies, saved only by the advent of an arriving taxi with its lights on full beam. We walked further, avoiding the loud shreaks of glass throwing trannies, and was also shown the street where a fully armed tank waits at the bottom, just in case there is a little bit of...bother.

It got me hooked. We headed home, and it was essentially pass out time. I consider myself quite the professional couch surfer, having surfed couches across the planet. The one at Richards though was a tough break, nasty orange, lumpy, hard and with this wooden bar positioned in such a way as to attempt to separate my spine from my back.

530am wakeup from the massive speakers on the mosques and the call to prayer. There is one outside of the window where I was sleeping. It hurt with a hangover. Really hurt.

Istanbul seems to operate on two things. Kebabs and Kebabs. Just around the corner is what can only be described as a vegetarian horror. Kebab alley I call it with a whole street of rotissering indeterminate meat products, under constant fire and being constantly cut and wrapped into convenient little packages.

There are so many Kebab shops here, that i have proposed a new unit of measurement the Kebabometer. Walk three kebabometers to the west, cross the bridge two kebabometers to the north and you would probablyy find another kebab shop.

Damn they are good though. There was an episode of the simpsons once where Homer was trying to get really really fat, he applied a test rubbing all his foods against a piece of paper to see if it made that fatty translucency. He called it the window to weight gain. Kebabs are served here in THICK brown paper, it practically went clear with oil, this window to weight gain is double glazed. Ouch.

The architecture is amazing, mosques, churches, the history is felt on every step. A trip through the Grand Bazaar was quite the treat, acres of tiny shops selling anything and everything turkish all under great arches, tiny windows and a throngof bustle and activity. It is here that I encountered the carpet salesman.

"Where you from?" they would ask "Sydney" I would reply, "Ahh Australia I have a cousin there"... "Where you from?", "Christchurch New Zealand"..."Ahh I have a cousin there"..."Where you from?"...."Chicken Alaska"..."Ahh I have a cousin there!" I noticed a pattern.

My favourite salesman though started off with I have magic flying carpets, and you have to admit thats going to get ones attention... he saw my interested glance and proceeeded to inform me it only worked after 7pm and you needed to drink a bottle of raki to get it going.

That night we went to a little cafe where they read your coffee grounds and tell your fortune. Yeah its all in turkish, but fortunately we had a friend along who could help us translate. Coffee was drunk, grounds tipped onto saucer and my future unfolded....

"You have something ailing you on the inside" he started with (a psychic trannie) which i assumed to be the kebab from earlier which was having a little intestinal party at my expense. He crapped on some more, culminating in you will meet the woman of your dreams in December on either the 15 or the 25, she has an A and an R in her name....I really tried here to buy a vowel, but no further information was revealed.

We exited, and being in the company of locals found ourselves in some very hip bars on the roofs of various buildings. Beers, crazy turkish music and beautiful turkish girls wiggling butts and breasts like worker bees on speed. Fantastic.

This town is addictive. Its east meets west, its alive, its electric. It has history. With amazing architecture, great food and people I can see this place being a trap that could be hard to escape from...