Environment
Apparently Turkey didn’t get the memo yet that smoking isn’t cool. There is smoking everywhere like the U.S. in the ‘70s - indoors, restaurants, hotel rooms, etc. This also means that there are ashtrays on every table in restaurants and hotel rooms - ick.
Shopkeepers seemed to work hard with primitive brooms and water buckets to keeps the sidewalks clean in front of their shops. Also there were dumpsters everywhere, even when driving in the countryside - never an excuse to not throw garbage away properly.
As cataloged in our feline homage, cats and dogs are everywhere and often cared for by the community/neighborhood with food, water and housing. We’ve seen restaurants feeding leftovers to the animals and even saw a dog with an entire side of ribs (maybe from a butcher?).
While inferred in some of the posts, we never specifically called it out: You can’t drink water in Turkey. While some places seemed normal smelling/tasting, others were clearly off. Don brushed his teeth with the water but neither of us intentionally drank it. Fortunately most of the lodging was super generous with providing bottled water, and in our first hotel we bought nearly a gallon jug for ~$0.75 and used it all refilling our bottles.
Most of the faucets we found in the hotels had the hot & cold reversed from what we’re accustomed to in the U.S.
Many public restrooms had both conventional toilets and “squatty potty” type stalls, so you had to be attentive about your choice when going in. Also, public restrooms were almost always 1TL to use - cheaper than in Europe, but a nuisance just the same.
The electrical outlets are like France & Italy, so we had the right one to bring...if Don hadn’t left it behind in an Istanbul hotel.
In Cappadocia, because of the nature of the cave hotels, paper could not be flushed down the toilet but instead needed to be put in a separate trash can...not ideal.
Few hotels after Istanbul cleaned the room or refreshed towels/soap/water, etc. for multi-day stays unless asked.
Driving/Transportation
The trams in Istanbul were good and we used them quite a bit. Clearly smaller towns were less/not equipped with similar infrastructure.
Motor scooters are everywhere and the life blood of Turkish transportation - also are the random vectors for pedestrians and drivers, since they travel any direction on any surface.
There is very little use of turn signals, but a generous use of horns (in a caring way). It often reminded us of driving in Costa Rica, but with more pavement.
We were impressed by Turkish Airlines, both for domestic and international flights. They had good service, clean planes and gave you food and water even for short trips.
The airports all have a security screening points as you first enter the front doors, then again after check-in/before the gates. Both the Istanbul and Izmir airports were very clean and new, with good lounges and restaurants (although many weren’t open or on reduced hours).
There are two types of Police, the Traffic police and the Jardenarm drive around with lights on
Stop lights in Izmir
Food
We were shocked at how salty all of the Turkish food was...except butter which was unsalted. We decided this must be compensation for the heat and the water that you drink/lose.
We found that most salads, and many other dishes, were served with a vinegar that we couldn’t quite place. Turns out that it is pomegranate vinegar, and we really came to like it!
”Shepherds Salad” was code name for cucumbers and tomatoes with a white cheese crumble - with pomegranate dressing.
We were very fond of the way that food for your meal is a combined effort by the community. Tea, coffee, and bread were mostly what we saw, but thought there were likely many other examples.
Some random food notes:
Tomatoes are often served peeled
The onions are very mild
Sugar is on the table in dishes wrapped in individual sugar cubes
Turkish ice cream is thick and sticky - we didn’t prefer it
Gin martinis are not common - every one we ordered was made with a lot of sweet vermouth and no olives (or olives with pits in)
Tea is served with everything and all day long
The sunflower seeds are huge and common everywhere
Hot dogs (at least those that we had) are made from some unknown ultra-pink meat
Most food vendors that serve heated food use little propane tanks, so these tanks are everywhere being picked up and delivered.
Often when we (as English speaking tourists) would enter a restaurant and say “hello”, then the staff would frantically scramble to find and English speaking staff member to help us...cute. This happened specifically in Konya & Antalya.
People
We noticed that most children and many adults were afraid of animals - especially dogs but sometimes cats too.
While the letters and words initially seemed really different, as we learned some of the unique specific sounds, we realized that phonetically their spelling makes similar sounds to English (bufe = buffet, bambu = bamboo,
Acquaintances are very touchy with each other, and often patted us on the shoulders/back. One person giving us direction would say “turn left” then pat our left arm, “turn right” then pat the right arm. Also when greeting each other they kiss on each side of the cheek like other European cultures.
When the boat tour guide was explaining the sights to us he used “upstairs” for the word “uphill”...cute.
There were lots of tattoos on many people we saw throughout the country.
There was much more focus on COVID in the main cities (especially Izmir) and far less in rural towns like Capadoccia.
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