—I'm starving; let's go get breakfast.
The still jet-lagged friend takes another forty minutes getting ready to go out.
—Are you ready yet? Let's go!
We finally walk over to Ilica to eat katmer and drink tea at Kumrucu Hüseyin ("Hüseyin the Kumru seller" -- kumru is a sandwich that's a Çes(h)me specialty; it's all in the sesame bread). Soooo delicious.
Here's katmer: it's fried dough stuffed with eggs and cheese and parsley.
On the way back, we stop by the supermarket to pick up some snacks and so my friends can see what Turkish junk food looks like. Some stuff is very different. Some stuff is just like what there is in the US, except entirely oblivious to such things as racism. Here are some cookies that are kinda like Oreos, except they're...
(pronounced "neh-gro", not "knee-gro")
In the US, the cookies came before the racial epithet. Here, my peoples have unwittingly just cut to the chase. I don't think anyone else ever thinks about the foreign languages he/she might speak, think of what a black person is called in that language, make the connection to the cookies made by Eti, and notice anything potentially wrong. I think if they called the cookies "Zenci" ("black person" in Turkish), they would still not see anything wrong with that but think it cute. People are just not race-conscious here. It's all about nationalism. You can go to jail for "insulting Turkishness" so watch out.
Back at home, we chill out for a bit, have a discussion about the weather/how windy it is to decide which beach would be best, then get ready to go to the beach of choice for the day.
Here's my soul captured in a photograph at the beach:
The primary snack on the beach is corn on the cob. A second one used to be candied apples, but apparently, people are just not buying them anymore. So says Nusret. We ran into him on the beach. He was one of the guys who painted the house we live in now when it was first constructed. That was over 25 years ago. The man has not changed a bit. I recognized his face immediately. Weird.
After the beach, we usually have linner since it's about 6:00 pm or so by the time we get back, and shower takes a while with 3+ people. Yesterday, we came back from the beach at around 8 pm; the sun was still warm. We went from beach to shower to dinner. Now, that's a good day.
After dinner and either drinks or a post-prandial Turkish coffee, the usual would be to just chill out, but the unusual happened the other night. My dad came in saying he thought he saw a mouse outside in the front yard. No one moved until I said "Where? I wanna see!" He warned me and said it's very big. (He was getting a mouse and a rat confused.) Even more fascinated now, I went outside. There was a big blob of a creature against the flowers in the front. Despite dad's warnings, I walked towards it and....
—Awwww. It's a porcupine!!!
—?????
...was the family's response. My mom and dad kept insisting it couldn't be. Dad kept repeating mouse and rat interchangeably. Mom pointed out "this is not a zoo" and wondered what a porcupine be doing here. Then, a light bulb went on in two genius minds: if we scare it, it will put up its porcupine shield, and I know what will scare it—the flash of a camera.
By the time we got our cameras, it had trudged into the bushes.
Sigh.
We went back to the living room. Dad kept getting up and looking through the screen door at the dark front yard, still wondering what the creature was. I tried not to get annoyed that 10 minutes later, my parents were still having the same conversation as if I had never uttered the word porcupine. If they don't know something, they can't possibly believe that I might have the answer. Welcome to being the youngest in the family. 15 minutes later, I was still explaining the difference between a mouse, a rat, and a porcupine (their sizes and their tails) to my dad.
Then, it came out again. I grabbed a camera. Late again. Here's the best shot I could take:
After the porcupine disappeared one last time, everyone else eventually went to sleep. As usual these days, I stayed up until about 3 am or so—this time, watching Celebrity Poker out of all things.
I'm enjoying the alone time at night, esp. once I turn the tv off (and once I've killed the offending mosquitoes).
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