Istanbul
Read More
Istanbul, The Blue Mosque and Fountain
Fountain of Ahmet III, Istanbul
Suleymaniye Mosque with Photographer
Istanbul - Nargile (Water Pipes)
There are a lot of cultures that take preventative steps toward warding off the "evil eye" and a bunch of them are in this neck of the woods. The belief is that nefarious types can get control over the unsuspecting by glancing at them in a certain pernicious way. The unsuspecting, apparently, are those who don't sport these shiny blue eye-like glass talismans. That's all you need to avoid a world of hurt. They are absolutely everywhere. Travel here for a few days and you will be sure to pick up this prophylaxis..or else!
Maybe I've just been on the Paleo Diet for too long and I'm hyper aware of them but the carbs seem to be everywhere and in great abundance. It wouldn't be so bad but man, they are delicious. I'm craving and the bakers are feeding my habit. Come on over this way my simit-selling friend.
Turkey is unique in the world of Islam in that there is a separation of mosque and state. Women, I'm told, are free to embrace western style or follow more traditional fashions. At the mosque however, the separation is well defined. The country is 95+% Moslem.
Coffee. In the good old coffee-addicted USA it is served up early in the morning and in such abundance that cafe waitstaff pour it lavishly and without regard to precise measure. Different here. The word for breakfast actually means "before coffee." Coffee after breakfast? It is an upside down world. Coffees are not brewed but reconstituted from powder and served in tiny cups by the the micro-milliliter or nano-centicube or some unit so damn small that no single serving will clear your head or give you a decent buzz.
Tea. Whereas coffee is selectively available, tea wantonly throws itself at you from every street corner. All social interactions are lubricated with tea. The curvey little tea glass is so common that it is used as a standard of measure in Turkish recipes. I wish I liked tea.
Travelers often ask about the plumbing. It does vary highly from country to country and we in the USA experience little of the variation which flowers so prolifically overseas. The standard Turkish facility is a combination of the good old stand-by and the French bidet. The pragmatic Turks have just added nozzle and a valve, no need for a space-consuming separate bidet stool. The terminus of one's alimentary canal is serviced via a squirt from the nozzle. Paper is used for drying.
Often found in Turkey and much of the more plumbing-adventurous world, this model requires more expertise, if not balance and precision from the user.
Here is something I learned in Turkey. A column of meat set to grill vertically is doner. This is like the gyro meat which is pretty common in the USA. This is the largest doner I have ever seen.
If it is set horizontally it is kokoroc (pronounced coco wretch), but don't get me wrong, it tastes good! It is sheep intestine wrapped around some sheep fat, then grilled. It is served on a toasted bun and sprinkled heavily with black pepper, salt and oregano. It is illegal in much of the world but beloved here. Jo and I liked it. A traveler's note regarding food protocol. When we approach any country we try to learn if the tap water is safe to drink and if raw fruits and vegetables are ok to consume. We got a "no" on the Turkish water and much ambiguity on the veggies. Well, we saw everybody eating all the salads so we proceeded with caution. Turns out it is all good. We had incredible market fresh everything and not a sign of Deli Belly.
You can decide to be aggravated or amused by the hard-sell folks at the markets. We pretty much just had a good time with them or politely said "istemez," it is not needed.
I don't think I've ever met friendlier, nicer people (well maybe the Canadians). So maybe a lot of them do just want to sell you a carpet or something else but very often after we established that we didn't need what they were selling, they'd just talk with us. We talked about travel and politics, many we met were fans of the USA and especially Obama. Often we just exchanged the few words we knew in Turkish and then broke into pantomime. This young student just wanted to get a photo with us. Then we were back on the bus, friends a little longer, then farewell forever.
