The big yellow truck

For the past 5 days we've had a hankering for a good gyro (a Greek sandwich), the kind Ladan and I used to have in Westwood at the Falafel Palace (a Lebanese restaurant) but until today had only caught glimpses  on Turkish restaurant advertisements. Sam's theory was that "durums", the Turkish version of the gyro, are like Philly cheesesteaks and that you can't really get one at a nice restaurant so today we walked right past the concierge and asked the bellboys where to find the best durum. By the time we made ourselves understood about four wide-eyed young bellhops had crowded around the first bellhop and though they couldn't agree on the prices or distance they enthusiastically agreed that the big yellow truck had the best durums. Note to self: don't wait 5 days to ask the young Turks for the best burger equivalent. It felt like we took a step into the real Turkey with great food at prices which were not for tourists only. Our sandwiches were only a few dollars each and sodas cost 1 Turkish lira each (US $.66 each) although "Colas" such as Pepsi and a local Sour Cherry still cost 2.5 TL (US $1.66).

PS: It should be noted that Ladan bravely tried the beet juice soda which was in fact sold under the mistranslated label of carrot juice soda with pepper sauce. Not bad as it turns out, basically Turkish Bloody Mary mix.

Super Che's Turkish brother (updated with photos)

Yoghurt by the bucket

My favorite place in Valle de Bravo, Mexico two years ago was the very modern Super Che supermarket. Where else can you find 10,000 foods and lots of household items with labels in Spanish just below? It's better than a set of flash cards for learning the language.

Olives by the kilo

Last night Ladan found Ozdilet, a huge modern supermarket near the hotel where you can buy yoghurt by the bucketful (literally), olives in so many forms and varieties that I stopped counting and lots of other tasty foods. If you look at the photo there are 22 different bins of olives and this doesn't include the countless other forms of packaging. Frankly it's pretty confusing if you are used to simply picking up a jar of olives at the store.

FYI Turkish is definitely harder than Spanish but we're slowly wading into the pool of Turkish words and pronunciation. Interestingly, not many foods carried brand names that we recognized except for the obligatory Coke, Pepsi and Toblerone. We're headed back today for more.

Three out of four complete

We bought 2 Turkish mobile phones today and more or less figured out the difference in rates between carriers. Avea has a great website, Vodafone is fairly popular but TurkCell seems to have the best plan and with any of these you have to go to their store with passport in hand before they will let you purchase a SIM card with minutes.

Things are starting to fall into place. School? Done. Car? Done. Mobile phones? Done. Apartment? Not yet, but hopefully by end of weekend. We've now seen two very livable modern apartments and just need to make a decision if we want to live in the city with easy access to restaurants, movies and other urban activities or further out with more space and more chances for the kids to blow off steam playing hoops, swimming etc. More to come...

Victory over expensive taxis, August 26th

Minor victory today over the expensive taxis we’ve been taking in that we were able to rent a car at a long term price that doesn’t break the bank. It’s not a looker and could double as a small ambulance but it seats five with room for luggage so it was with a certain amount of pride that we drove off the lot (actually just a sidewalk with a large curb). As we passed taxis on the highway I secretly hoped they all felt the pang of a missed fare. Our position in the pecking order of helpless tourists, OK really just in our own minds, has risen a notch.

Narco drama at the airport, August 25th

The flight from Munich to Izmir was uneventful, at least until we got on the ground. We waited at baggage claim until everyone else was gone for our somewhat unwieldy 9 checked bags (disclaimer: we’re staying 5 months) and wondered if we were going to have to learn how to spell “Lost Bag” in Turkish when finally Jasmine’s last bag showed up. It came, however, accompanied by a shorter, down-market Don Johnson who produced a ragged wallet with an oversized chrome “Polis” badge and who started asking who the last bag belonged to. When he explained that the police dog had singled out Jasmine’s bag for narcotics my American mind went instantly to Orient Express and just what an easy setup we were. 

There is more to this story but my family has begged me to be brief so suffice it to say that hearing the words “maybe dog make a mistake” was a big relief and almost seemed off-script to my over-active imagination. Jasmine, 15, who had seemed amazingly unfazed by the whole episode, showed just the slightest tremble in her fingers as she quickly threw her things back into her suitcase under the still watchful gaze of the guards. They apologized for the inconvenience and just like that we walked out of the Izmir airport and into the Aegean sun to catch our hotel shuttle.

a week to go to the big day. everyone is stressing about the last minute details on our 6 month trip to Izmir, Turkey right now. we cant wait to go and are hungry for some Turkish delight.