Istanbul Day 5- Guitar Shopping

I know I've had amazing days during this voyage, but for one reason or another, this one is up on the charts as one of my favorites.

No, I did not spend the day with the girls, for the upteenth time. But rather, I found my love. Guitars.

The night before, Victor told me one of his friends wanted a guitar on the cheap. I, looking for an opportunity to not do stuff with the girls and satisfy my desire for musical instruments, was more than happy to tag along and essentially do his shopping. Victor knew of one place with musicshops past Galleta Tower, towards Taxim Square. So we went.

When I say "with music shops," I mean loaded with music shops. For about a quarter of a mile, you couldn't go down this street without some sort of music store being in sight. All sorts of instruments, Turkish soz, guitars, basses, drums, saxophones, any western instrument you could ever want as a musician could be found here. There was even an entire store dedicated to cymbals.

The guitar Victor's friend wanted was an acoustic guitar with a single cutaway. And we had a budget of $100. Otherwise the dude wasn't particularly specific.

We perused a couple guitar stores, tried a couple guitar here and there. What's strange about the stores is when they marked the prices, they didn't often list them in TL, but in US and Euro. At probably the third store we walked in, we found this Laguna classical electric. It was gorgeous, sounded wonderful, felt good in my hands. It was like a perfect glove on my hand. It was love at first touch. After an ordeal with his bank and an ATM, Victor acquired the money to pay for it, and ta-da, we were done. Alas, it isn't meant to be for me and her, but we had our moment together. Sniff. Sniff. Cry.

Victor and I also had lunch at this fancy French-looking restaurant (it had murals of fall and spring in French on the sides of the wall). I had steak. It was dry. Then we had steamed hamburgers, which were surprisingly good, if not underwhelming for a lack of meat.

And so we leave another port. But Istanbul has its surprises. I didn't know I loved being a bitchy haggler so much. And who knew I'd find a guitar I'd love. But I definitely wish I found my way to Gallipoli, if only for a day. But that gives me incentive to come back someday.