Istanbul Pick-Up Artists

Recently, I traveled to Cluj-Napoca, Romania, to work with a team of our developers for one week. We were quickly approaching the first major milestone on our project and my intimate last-minute involvement was important in ensuring a successful release. Cluj, known as the capital of Transylvania, is a "quaint town", as my boss put it, with still many-a-sign of the former Soviet influences. No Dracula. While there, I concluded that Romanian, the language, is a mishmash of at least four influences including Russian, Latin, German, and, it has been suggested to me by locals, Turkish. My favorite illustrative phrase is "magazin carne", where magazin is "store" in Russian and carne means "meat" in Spanish.

At the end of the week, I had made plans to visit Istanbul, Turkey, for a couple of days to investigate how the Turks "do." Arguably the most historic city in that part of the world, Istanbul is built around grandiose monuments, or, more precisely, grandiose mosques. Hagia Sofia, the fourth largest church in the world, also a mosque, also a museum, is overshadowed only by the Blue Mosque, which is quiet literally right across the street, perhaps portending the McD's-Burger King rivalry all those centuries ago.

The key takeaway from this trip, however, has to do with the Turkish people themselves, or, perhaps, with the Istanbul variety thereof, since this is the only brand to which I was exposed. It turns out that Istanbul is the original motherland of the Pick-Up Artist (MPUA). No time is wasted and no tourist is left unscathed. Not 5 minutes passed since I walked off my plane as I was already approached by two enterprising friends of mine. "My friend, my friend, which hotel do you need? You need bus?" "No, thanks, it's okay". "My friend, it will cost you 543.5 beshulmekas on the taxi but my bus is only 312 beshulmekas and 33 fortipookas." "Thanks", keep walking. "My friend", already disappointed that he has to try so hard, "Where are you from?" With a quick check of the relevancy of my origins to our continuing this insightful discourse, I blurted "Don't worry about it" as I hopped into an empty cab... meter already running. Welcome to Istanbul.

Later that evening, on my way to Sultanahmet, the neighborhood where the aforementioned Blue Mosque is located, I ran into my Turkish brother. "Excuse me, what time?" "It's 9:30" "Oh?! You speak English! I so glad I meet, are you a tourist?" "Yes", "Oh... yes! Me too! Now we are brothers, yes?! Where you from? How long are you here? Do you like Istanbul? What is your phone number? Did you eat dinner? What color is your underwear?" I exaggerate but not by much, this master of the gab skillfully interspersed very personal questions with utter nonsense while speed-walking next to me for a good 10 minutes. His manner and speech induced a sort of a trance, where, being fully aware of walking and talking with a complete stranger in a foreign country, I continued to do so while sprinkling-in factoids that I immediately regretted, like the name of my hotel, who I'm traveling with, and for how many nights I'm staying there. I was finally able to send my brother on his way by promising to meet him the next day to go to Taksim Square -- I hope he didn't wait at our agreed upon meeting spot too long.

The next evening, while exploring Taksim Square on my own volition, I ran into, surprise, another great friend of mine. "Hello, where you from?!" But this time I was prepared: "Izveni, po Amerikashkomu ne boomboom." He was having none of it: "A ti po Ruski?! Ya toje, ya uchil Ruski kogda bil..." Incredible, these guys must speak a dozen or so languages. After more speed walking exercise with this horse trainer with an Uzbeki girlfriend (I decided to ask the personal questions this time), I let him on his merry way, but not before he intently tried to usher me to some bar/lounge that is supposedly the mecca for all Russians in Istanbul. From what I gathered, these fine gents are some sort of tourist brokers, escorting unsuspecting new friends to bars and collecting commissions for doing so.

My last line of defense proved effective: headphones. I claimed no new friends for the remainder of my time in Istanbul.