Istanbul Day Eight

 New Year’s Eve. Today we are off to a small city on The Black Sea to celebrate. For at least some of the last few years, the family has traveled to this same hotel for their annual NYE party. Room, Music, Dancing, all you can drink and eat. What’s not to love.

The drive zips by and we check in. After we settle into our rooms, Jake and I decide to hit the pool table, hungry for the taste of green felt and to do something American. To our dismay, we were greeted by a billiards table. This pocketless freak taunted us in our mission to drink beer and make sport. The typical Turkish game is three rail billiards. It is played with three balls, one cue and two objet balls. The goal is to score points. You score a point by hitting your ball and your opponent’s ball with the cue ball. Before the cue ball hits your opponent’s object ball, it must hit three rails. In short, this game is impossible and we promptly gave up on it.

Soon enough it was time for dinner. The energy was something in between bar mitzvah and wedding. I couldn't help but be reminded of the now dead and gone resorts of the Borscht Belt. Same thing, different people. Turkish music blared out of the DJ’s speakers like Fetty Wap cries out of a broken JBL on the bus. Glasses of raki fill and empty, the beat of the night. At midnight, we throw lentils in the air. I’m not sure why, frankly I wasn’t sure about much of anything after about ten PM.

As the party wound down and I walked back to my room I looked out the window, fresh snow for a fresh year. May your 2026 be crisp, clean, and sweet.