14

Istanbul Airport

22 March 2024

Living in Italy for nearly 14 years means that I have sampled many wines and cheeses and most of the wine is about 14% alcohol while the cheese is free from alcohol entirely.  There is a joke there somewhere and nobody is obligated to laugh or spit out their coffee or snort. 

Today I walked for about an hour inside the Istanbul airport and passed a couple of bars that served burgers, liquor, beer, and wine.  I kept walking as I wanted to know where my gate was; I knew from previous adventures in this airport a person might have to walk fast to make a connection and even though my head was turning left and right my feet kept on walking forward.  I finally found my gate, a bathroom, and a bottle of water though probably not in that exact order.  I tried to get another hour of Wi-Fi, but that was not an option.  I looked up from the Wi-Fi kiosk and saw a place call the BI Café and Bar.  The “I” might be questionable in this part of the world.  It was actually a martini icon so who knows what the name of the place actually is. 

This is Ramadan and I didn’t really know whether a person could get a glass of wine, but I thought I’d give it a try.  I had tried this at my hotel in Bahrain at their Poolside Bar.  I walked through a very beautiful facsimile of a Japanese garden, looked through their menu and selected an alcoholic drink only to be told they only sold non-alcoholic drinks during Ramadan.  It was no big deal as I still had a lot of work to do, and my head needed to be clear.

Yay!  Capitalism wins again and I was able to purchase a glass of white wine in Turkey for the very low price of 574 Turkish Lira.  That’s about $15 but who is complaining.  There is something wonderful about having a glass of wine at this time of the year in this part of the world.