Turkish Wine

Today Chris' friend came into town so we went out to a wine bar to celebrate. The wine bar is called Sensus, and it only serves Turkish wine. It's right next to Galata Tower inside the basement of a hotel, and it has a real cellar-y feel to it. The floors and walls are all stone, and there is bright but localized light. Lots of bright and dark spaces with everything in between very soft. 

The people working there help you make selections on what kind of wine to try, and you can buy it by the bottle or the glass. Tonight we were all drinking the same Cab. I don't know a lot about wine so I can't tell you about the fruity flavors and woody aftertaste or whatever it is that wine people say about wine. I thought it was good. 

Back in August, Chris had this idea that we should try a new Turkish wine every week and rate them. He really wanted to know more about Turkish wine and wine in general. It worked for a couple weeks - he would carefully record our impressions of the wine and we would all give it a grade based on taste and price. After tonight, I think it would be fun to get back into that. 

Coincidentally my mother and my friend went to a Turkish restaurant in New York City last night and drank a bit of Turkish wine. I asked my mom if she remembered what it was called. She told me all she remembered was that it was the third one down on the list. It seems we could all learn a little something about Turkish wine.

Another Failure

Abby bought Christmas lights for the house! I got home and saw them sitting on my bed and got really excited! I decided to make tonight's blog post about putting up our Christmas lights. Look how cute they are with their small European plug!

We picked out where we wanted them to go; we have this part of the living area that doesn't have an overhead light. We thought the colorful lights would brighten up the room. Christmas spirit! The strand was about ten feet long, and we quickly untangled them to their full length. We plugged that cute little plug into the wall...and nothing. We tried another outlet. And another. We got zip. Actually we got this:

Lights that won't fit back into the box and the prospect of trying to return them like this! 'Tis the season. The next best thing is to make paper snowflakes from recycled Turkish homework and English grammar worksheets. Seems appropriate. 

İskender

This, my friends, is Iskender Kebap. And oh baby, is it good. Now, the iskender pictured below is definitely not the best that I've ever had in my life. There are french fries on the top for goodness' sake. 

No, no, the best iskender that I've ever had was in Bursa, the town where iskender was invented. It's named after it's inventor (like Fettucine Alfredo!), and you can read all about the origins here.

But more about what happens on the plate. First, they put a layer of bread on the bottom of the plate, then thin lamb slices which are covered in a tomato-butter sauce. Then after they serve it, they come around with a pot of tomato-butter sauce and pour it all over. Tomatos, lamb, bread, butter? Yes. Please.

Since my first iskender experience three years, I've been searching for the next best thing. I'll be honest. There is a Turkish restaurant in Dallas that does this dish a whole lot of justice. I hedge it because I can't in good faith say that the best iskender outside of the city where it was invented is in Texas. It's pretty good though. Check out Cafe Istanbul - they have two locations in Dallas.

As for finding the best iskender in Turkey, it's almost as difficult as finding the best chicken fried steak in America: everywhere makes it and price is definitely a factor. I'll keep searching and let you know what I discover.

Ludwig's Limits

This is a sign that I see almost every day at the place where I work. And it's meant for kids learning English but it also resonates with me as I am learning Turkish in Turkey. 

Often, I actively change my course of action because I don't know how to say what I really want in Turkish. This is especially true when it comes to approaching guys. In America, my wit and charm are enough win the boys over but it turns out my humor doesn't quite translate into Turkish yet. So when I see a cute guy, I don't say anything because I figure they either won't understand me at all or they will think I'm a hooker. 

So tonight at dinner, I saw a cute guy across the restaurant. I pointed him out to Abby and Niko, and they agreed that he was cute. That was going to be the end of the story - I couldn't express myself properly so there was no point in trying. And then I heard him speaking English! Back in the game!

And then he left. So I spent the next ten minutes working up the nerve to go talk to his friends. Okay, there was no real plan but I was going to see if I could get some info on this dude. Well, that was awkward. The table had a pretty awkward vibe when I sat down anyway - there were two guys and two girls plus one of the guy's parents. Anyway, there was no real way to segue from "Can I sit?" to "So does your friend have a girlfriend?" plus the guy with the parents had lost his wallet and that was a whole thing, so I extracted myself and fled back to my table.

As we left, I regretted chickening out so I made Chris go in there and explain that I am a wuss and could I have the number of the guy who left? It was totally Junior High-ish but hey, we all had boyfriends in Junior High because this kind of thing works! Chris goes back in and explains that I was interested in the guy who left. Well, it turns out the guy with the parents had also left at some point to look for his wallet. So Chris was asking about the wrong guy...in front of his parents.

Chris came back with a name which I quickly realized was the wrong name. Game over. I'll go back to studying Turkish now. Or maybe the language barrier isn't really the problem here. 

Awwwwkwwaarrrdddd.

Small Entertainments

I have spent the last three hours Skyping with my mother and grandmother. I talk to them about once a week, and half the time it's catching up and the other half of the time is us going "same old, same old." Sometimes I feel like nothing notable happens - as evidenced by the boringness of my blog. Nonetheless, these are the days of my Turkish life. I took this picture because I thought it was funny.

Ha. I also like the contrast between the blue screen and the orange and green. That's part of my SUPER healthy dinner of butter pasta with peas and carrots! Yum.

Here's a SUPER artsy picture of the pasta and the peas. Ooooh symmetry! Anyway, I'm tired and there's not a lot going on here. Back to Season 1 of The West Wing...

How The Nights End

Last night I went out with some friends in Taksim, and as we were leaving, I stopped to take a picture of the clothes store Mango and its marquee. It lists every city that has a Mango, including Dallas, my hometown! Waiting to spot it has become one of my late night traditions. But they are in alphabetical order, and we showed up a little late. So we stood there watching the names of cities around the world go by, Abby and I made a game out of it by pointing out all the ones we've been to. The last time I stood outside to watch for it, my friend and I pointed out cities that we had never heard of. A very different game but just as entertaining. After about 5 minutes, we spotted Dallas!

I get really excited when I see Dallas, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's usually very late on a Friday night. Ok, that factors in a little bit. Nonetheless, it's awesome to see this small connection from two important places in my life. Maybe people from Rome and Damascus feel the same way?

Two additional thoughts. First, Crete is an island not a city, and Deira is a part of Dubai. Why would they abandon the city theme? Crete has individual cities, I'm sure the Mango is in one of them and there is more than one Mango in Istanbul but the individual neighborhoods don't come up on this marquee so why are Crete and Deira so special, huh? Second, I had no idea where Rotterdam was. I had to Google it. 

So yes. I'm a nerd who thinks it's fun to play geography games at 1am on a Friday night in the bar district of Istanbul. Sorry I'm not sorry. 

Santa: The Bed Intruder

"Look who's coming round the bend! It's Santa and his reindeer friend. With a ho, ho, ho and a hey, hey, hey. It's Santa's super sleigh!" Yes, Christmas does exist in Turkey. I spotted this today. 

Who's that climbing in your window? No, it's not the Bed Intruder. It's Santa! Hanging on for dear life. Can't see it? Let's zoom in! 

It made me laugh. It is the only outside holiday decorations that I've seen. I've seen the holiday aisle in the stores but this is this first house I've seen in the theme of Christmas. Happy December, everyone!