Bar Management Midterm
For my bar management class, we were required to go to a professional Mixologist’s bar and have a drink or two with our professor (on the house) after getting a full tour and mixing drinks ourselves. How’s that for a midterm!?
Also, our Mixologist has his own drink sponsored by Bacardi and is a worldwide champion! You can check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YsX7LjCKLg
Our prof named the bar, and so four of us split a cab to downtown yesterday evening. The cabbie was so sure of where to drop us off, and gave us the walking directions from there (not all the streets here can actually fit cars). Turns out, he dropped us off over a km from where we were supposed to be, and sent us walking in the wrong direction.
Long story short, we ended up wandering through the red light district of Nicosia at 9pm in heels and dresses. We leaned in to an open foyer and asked someone for directions, and found out after about a sentence of conversation that she wanted more from us than we wanted from her. She and her friends were smoking cigarettes and chatting, so we made our way to the bar and didn’t think anything of it.
That was the last we saw of them, but after some talking, we deduced that they must have been sex workers. How ironic is it to find direction from a prostitute?
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Photos of the bar night will come once Ariela sends me the pictures.
I really can’t keep my thumb to myself.
This morning, Becca, Ariela and I decided to ditch the bus (and our plans to go to the beach) and headed to the old city, and the North side.
Of course, we thumbed and met a guy who had been to each of our home states within the last year! Our home states are Iowa, Massachusetts, and South Carolina.
We headed North after doing a bit of wandering around the old city with three goals in mind: food, hamam, and a bit of shopping.
We found the hamam right away. The Hamam was built in 1192 under Ottoman rule and has been renovated only slightly since. It’s age was evident because as the streets have been built up over time, the Hamam has stayed at it’s level, which meant that we descended stairs into the bath house.
Outside of the Hamam
We spent about 20 euro each for 2 hours in the baths and steam room, and a half hour massage, plus tea and unlimited water and lounging afterwards in their lounge area.
What our side room looked like!
When I’ve heard about baths, I always thought they were like spas where people just sit around and are in ‘healing water’ or something. Nope. They seriously gave us bars of soap, expected us to strip naked (it was coed today, so most people were in bathing suits. most.), and bathe each other. One old, fat, naked guy tried to bathe a girl he wasn’t with, which was awkward. We avoided that and kept to ourselves in our side room.
My massage was totally awesome though! 85TL =20 euro= 30 USD. Not too shabby!
And of course I had a halloumi sandwich for lunch, and more fresh squeezed orange juice! The OJ is to die for! And my obsession with halloumi continues 🙂