A few of my favorite things

False acropolis's and turtles now hissing
Snakes as thick as my forearm when it's lifting
Open air displays of odd ancient things
This is the great stuff that happened to me....ing?

Ok, enough rhyme. I was going to complain about the museum director that stood me up today, but actually I'm bored with it all. So instead, I will talk about the wonder of last night.

Imagine me, a Russian girl from the Ural mountains (how fitting is that, born on the border of Europe and Asia, in Turkey, crossroads of two continents), and a half Turkish, half Italian Iranian citizen, in a bar that plays mostly hip hop. Now picture five or six jubilant Turkish guys, fairly young, dancing all over the place because...they work there. Hooters inverted!

Suddenly, to encourage customer participation, they start country line dancing to...Ne-Yo. And--I know this will be hard to fathom, American homophobes--other Turkish men join in! There are seriously no girls at this point, and no one cares.

I'm failing to convey the nigh-surreality of the whole thing. Keep in mind that all of these guys hail from the break-dancing school of dance, and most are pretty good. Some are even legit. But things got really absurb when the high school tourist girls joined in, with their awkward motions (juxtaposed to the smooth vivacity of their hosts) and complete ignorance of anything resembling cool. "Yes, we're having fun. Right?" They're puzzled smiles informed me.

To kick it up that last notch, MTV was on the tv's behind the mayhem on the dance floor. The Wild Boys were in Thailand, wiping elephant's bums and encouraging Wee Man (the midget) to Muy Thai fight the local boys. Then Celebrity Death Match came on. Again, this was only interesting because it provided a backdrop to what I will never forget. For at least five days.