The Belgrad Forest and Roshan's First Punk Rock Show!

Sunday, we woke up bright and early. The sun filtered through the curtains. We were up by 9 and out of the house by 9:20. We caught the bus to Mecdiköy. A rather ominous bank of gray clouds loomed in the distance. From Mecdiköy, we caught a bus to the Belgrad Forest, getting off at Bahçeköy. We bought some food and a bottle of wather which Roshan was scolded about by the store keeper.
"The best water is in the forest and you buy a bottle!!!!"

Roshan explained that he didn't have anything to put the wonderful Belgrad forest water in so he had to buy the bottled water. The store keeper grudgingly sold him the water. All the drinking water in Istanbul used to come form the Belgrad Forest. It was piped to Taksim where it was distributed by pipes going to the different parts of the city.

Roshan explained that the forest was packed in the summer so now was the best time to go. We walked along some forest paths listening to birds and chatting. The ominous weather had gone elsewhere. Roshan even got in touch with the wild man inside himself. At last we reached the picnic area. There were parking lots and tons of people. We walked a little further to another parking lot. There Roshan saw his biking friends. I joked that they would laugh at him since he didn't have his bike and was with a girl instead. His excuse to them was a nail had pierced his bike tire. (He could have fixed it the night before but he quit working on it when we decided to go to the forest together.)

We found an empty picnic area and Roshan lit a fire to heat the tea. I cut up the tomatoes and cucumbers. We had a peaceful breakfast. We were going to walk to the lake but we decided to safe that for another day since I wanted to get back to Taksim in time to see Rashit play at Peyote.

Peyote was sold out. Fortunately the owner let us in anyway. The place was packed with kids who were apparently too cool to have any fun. I headed straight for the front. Generally, if you can get through the crowd at a punk show to the area in front of the stage there is space as long as you don't get phased by flying bodies. I pulled Roshan into a momentarily available space. There were a few people moshing. I threw myself in for a spin. At that moment, I remembered that this was Roshan's first punk show and I hadn't explained the concept of slam dancing. At that moment, this whirlwind went flying past me. Roshan had entered the mosh pit with his usual gusto. He spun around in the center like a crazed dervish. I was worried he would hurt someone so I tried to pull him out. He sent us both flying into a pile in front of the stage.
"The object is not to kill everyone!" I said.
"Well they started it!" was his answer.

He had succeeded in clearing the pit. Everyone who had been moshing, stood around the edges looking rather startled.
"I think you scared everyone." I said. I think out of everyone there, we had the best time. Most of the people there looked like they weren't really sure what they should be doing. Rashit was great but no one even clapped. If it had been an afternoon all ages punk show in the US, the whole place would have been a pogo-ing mass of yelling youth. We left after Rashit and went to an Irish dancing lesson.