Turkish afternoon at the barbers Thursday

Happy Thursday!

Another day, another adventure.

I realised I posted daily for the last week or so, as something inspired me to every single day. Fingers crossed it will continue!

Today is about how I ended up having fun conversations whilst enjoying delicious Turkish tea and Turkish delight at a Turkish barbers’ shop in the middle of Southampton.

How you  might ask. Well, here it goes…

Sheba and I ventured out at lunchtime and went to the barbers she normally goes to to get a quick trim, but he was too busy.

I remembered that a couple of weeks ago our lovely boss Dave had a really nice, stylish haircut at a Turkish barbers shop near Guildhall Square.

I googled exactly that ‘turkish barbers shop, Southampton’ but nothing came up.

I randomly started talking about kismet (κισμέτι, fate/destiny), one of my favourite Turkish words.

We decided we would just go for a walk into town instead. On our way, we came across the Turkish barbers shop, which was actually called AK Grooming Room -Traditional Turkish Barbers

What were the chances! Maybe it was kismet… or maybe not.

It looked nice, clean and stylish from the outside so we went in.

We were offered a drink and we were both surprised when the lovely assistant told us they had Turkish tea! Whilst we were enjoying our tea, we started chatting to the owners.

And we didn’t stop chatting until we left!

We talked about food obviously, all the similar Greek and Turkish dishes and delicacies such as ntolmades, gyros and locoum-i (Turkish/Greek Delight) which they treated us to-proper, thick, pistachios-filled Turkish delight, it was delicious!

We then chatted about Cyprus and Constantinople (Istanbul), how I ended up to Southampton from Cyprus, how they randomly decided to move to Southampton from London.

They invited us to visit for a cup of tea and a chat anytime.

For a moment I forgot I was in Southampton, I felt I was back home, in Cyprus. More often than not when you go for a haircut in most places in Cyprus, you end up getting to know everyone else who is at the hairdressers and chat about random things.

If you live in Southampton, fancy a proper Turkish Barber’s experience from a beverage, hot towels and face masks to great conversation and stylish haircuts and you want to support local independent shops, then give them a go!

Today I’m grateful I spent my lunchtime having tea and locoum at a barbers’ shop with my best friend and the lovely, friendly Turks we just met.

Teşekkür ederim!

Eleni