Sex, Travel and The Pandemic

Grand Bazaars, American Invasion, And The Phoenix

I stumbled into the hostel at around 7 or 8pm. My neck felt stiff and I was exhausted from the long travel day to Istanbul, Turkey from Porto, Portugal. To top it all off, I was a little bit hungover from my bingey couple of days in Porto. All in all, I was ready to drop my bag and have a 12-hour relationship with my bed. I slumped into my room, the long day pressing against my back and shoulders. When I got to bed, I dropped myself and proceeded to try to succumb to the hands of sleep. Keyword here is "try".

There was activity going on upstairs. Lots of activity. The sound of music, clinking glasses and human chatter echoed throughout the entire building. Even though I was tired, my body couldn't go to sleep amid the noise. Then there was FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out. Whatever was going on upstairs, I kind of wanted to be a part of it. I was tempted to go check it out. NO! I needed sleep. I fought the temptation for a brief moment. Then, a South African man named Idris drunkenly made his way into the room. He was a guest at the hostel for a while now and he knew that I was new, so, naturally, he struck up a conversation with me. He then told me how much fun it was upstairs and how I should come up.

I said "no!"

Idris, however, was a persistent fella. "Just have one drink. My treat!"

"Okay, okay!" My leg was quite an easy pull in this situation. "One drink." It never is just one drink. "Let me take a shower first!"

"Hurry up. It's popping off upstairs right now!" Idris said before grabbing what he had to grab then heading back to the bar.

As much as I wanted to get some sleep, I was curious to see what he meant by "popping off". Were they having massive Turkish orgies on the rooftop, or were they having a games night playing charades or checlers or something like that? The term "popping off" was a loose term that could mean anything. I was now more curious than ever.

I gathered myself together, jumped into the shower then made my way upstairs. There was no orgy going on, nor was there any sort of charades or checkers. It was just a crowded bar filled with, get this, AMERICANS!!

Let me give you a little context as to why it was so shocking seeing Americans. The United States of America was demonized and red-listed by the entire world due to its incredibly high cases of COVID-19. The USA was hands down the worst hit country in the world. Most of Europe wouldn't allow Americans in for fear that they would make the spread of the virus even worse. Turkey, on the other hand, opened their doors to the Americans with little to no restrictions. This made Turkey one of the few destinations on the planet that Americans could travel to, and it caused thousands of Americans to flock to Istanbul, filling up the hotels, Airbnbs, and hostels. You can't blame Turkey for opening their borders to the entire world. Turkey was a fairly poor country and each lockdown, each restriction and each curfew affected its citizens more than it did for most other countries in the region. England could afford it, Germany could afford it, The Netherlands, Finland, and to some extent, Spain, and Portugal. Turkey couldn't and they tried their best to manage the virus as well as the country's cash flow could afford. So, they invited everyone in, including the Americans. Turkey now had an American infestation, an American problem, and as you will soon find out, this proved near deadly to not only Turkey but also myself.

I squeezed my way to the bar, having quick conversations with some people on the way there. Americans are very friendly and chatty people, so it took me quite a while to even get to the bar. Idris was on the other side chatting with a cute girl and I wasn't about to interrupt his moment to say, "YOO, you owe me a drink!"

I got to the bar and ordered myself an Efes, Pilsner. My energy in no way matched the eccentric crowd. I needed some sort of substance in me to be a functioning adult in this scenario.