Minutiae

I had typed out a whole blog entry a few days ago and silly me, I was not saving as I went along and was not cognizant of the fact that the electricity had already gone out twice during the day. It does that here on campus though not, apparently as often when students are here. And we speculated that the air conditioner was to blame for sucking up all of the electricity. It has only gone out once at home. But it never stays out very long - only two or three minutes. So I lost the entry.

A side note, when I visited at Christmas time and we went to Antalya, the lights in the old harbor went out every night for up to an hour - no one really seemed to notice! They just lit some candles in the restaurant we started going to every night and went on their way drinking tea and talking!

So, I was trying to capture some of the day-to-day things here in this post. As seen below, ads from the glossy flyer for the grocery store paint a pretty typical picture. Although I am not sure I have ever seen a party pack in North America, all the products in here are familiar-ish: Efes beer (the local beer that can be good or can taste like fish), Pepsi, chips, nuts etc. Not a bad price for all of that.
These packs are usually on sale so it’s not just because of the World Cup.

Next, is a picture of the cheese on offer. White cheese. Lots and lots of white cheese can be had which is not unlike mozzarella but not exactly mozzarella, either. There are other cheeses, one kind of cheddar, Gouda, Camembert etc., but these are fairly expensive. Also dairy-wise, there is: yogurt, yogurt, yogurt watered down into a drink, cream cheese, more yogurt and mostly UHT milk. I found pasteurized milk but it went bad in only two days. I think because milk here is only whole milk, so no water to give it a longer shelf life. So I am adjusting to the UHT stuff. Also, there is no sour cream. At all. I love sour cream.
At the faculty club on campus, there is a section on the menu of Tex-Mex items. It’s true. And they say these items are served with sour cream. So Peter asked the barman, Murat, about the sour cream and he brought us a sample. Turns out, it is basically whipped cream but not sweetened. Oh well, you don’t really need sour cream anyway. I learned to love sour cream and chips from R. and A. upstairs in Vic but since there isn’t such a thing here I am settling for a dip made from mayo and bbq sauce served with bugles I had at the faculty club.

And the produce. It is fantastic here! Whatever is in season is cheap, delicious and abundant. A whole watermelon is 2 YTL (however, there is no such thing as seedless here) and cherries are still in season! But the strawberries are gone. And they don’t sell overpriced ones by the pint that are fat and tasteless until the winter holiday when it’s a treat. Which is very different from N. America where you can get anything, nearly anytime but not be assured it’s that good. While lots of things like peppers and tomatoes taste like they come from your garden and are cheap as chips, things like avocados and bananas cost more than I am used to paying. But, the quality is still very high for these things.

Other, tidbits here... below is a picture of Yumy toilet paper, which we thought was quite cute. There is not peanut butter of the regular variety to be had. I think I mentioned that already. While there is a whole 1/3 aisle devoted to Nutella-like spreads, there is only a really sweet type of peanut butter. And I have it on authority that most people when going to the US or UK, bring back things like peanut butter, Stilton cheese and shoes (for ladies like myself with large feet). So we are thinking of trying to make peanut butter at home… We are in fact, making Ginger beer right now. I say we, Peter is making a Ginger Beer Plant right now so we can make Ginger Beer. Finally, laundry. We have a washing machine in the bathroom. It basically takes up the whole bathroom. Quite different then what I am used to, but at least we have one in the apartment. And we dry everything on a clothes dryer – see below. I think dryers uncommon here and only the rich have them. And I haven’t seen anything in any of the shops like the stacked washer and dryers suitable for apartments. I think there is also a fear of ruining things in dryers and having to pay to run them, it’s true that our clothes will last longer being air-dried. There is a HUGE market for irons, consequently. It seems the sales people encourage ironing everything including t-shits and underwear. But it makes sense, I guess, if you can’t put things in a dryer.

There are all sorts of other little things that are different here: going to a bar and going to the washroom only to discover there is not a conventional toilet like I am used to (but you make due, trust me); statues and pictures of Ataturk everywhere; people sweeping whole parking lots with a household broom (it creates jobs) and so on. But many things are the same: Lay’s potato chips; Starbucks (if anyone knows of someplace else in Ankara to buy filter coffee, please let me know!); stores like Levi’s and Diesel in the mall; Mercedes and Hyundai and so on. The material things are fairly similar here, overall. But the pace is much more relaxed and people don’t seem to worry as much or being in any great hurry. It drives me nuts. And I consider myself pretty laid back and uncomfortable on the East Coast because I think the pace is too fast! But all in all, things are pretty similar and when they aren’t, you try to adapt and figure out if some company will ship peanut butter to Turkey!