Holllly cow! The Rhythm Project performance was quite a success, and in fact, the whole Peace Concert went off without a hitch. We performed our rhythms flawlessly and the sound of the crowd clapping in unison was a sure sign we were doing something right. Afterwards, we stuck around for the two following acts. An older guy that looked a bit like Einstein and his band, with traditional Turkish instruments and flute/sax player. Don't be fooled though, he was rockin'! After that a small group of hand drummers played to disco type music. I think the group was called Harim or something. It was pretty cool... but we sounded better on our jars, jugs, pots, and trash cans. :P Just kidding, they rocked, too. It was an extremely invigorating and uplifting end to the day and beginning of the night time festivities.

After the concert our large group piled into various cars to head into the city center to go to a local bar for one last bruhaha with two very lovely and dear friends from the Ukraine. As I write this they are probably in Istanbul, having already begun their journey home. We sang and danced and drank and were so numerous we took up about half of the bar. Unbelievably I'm holding out quite well at work, even though I didn't walk in my door until after 4:15 and with all that excitement I couldn't very well fall asleep right away. I'm still not sure what time it was when I dozed off, but I don't remember hearing the first prayer, so my guess is sometime before dawn at least.

The trainees/foreigners involved in the project from left to right (I'll have to try and find one with everyone who was involved in it sometime):

Pay-yo (Taiwan), Lee (Australia), Me, Cecilia & Jula (Germany), Esteban (Costa Rica), Hajir (Tunisia), Olena (Ukraine) in front