Here are a couple of things I saw when I was out and about today— one of them interested me, and maybe the other will interest you. We’ll see.
I suspect I’d really like this if I could understand Turkish well enough. Just the photo makes me want to go. I love stand up, especially the work of Cem Yılmaz, but it took me a long time to get my ears tuned into the cadence of his voice, and I’m not sure if I went to see an unfamiliar guy live that I’d be able to keep up right away. In any case, does anyone know anything about Engin Günaydın? Seen him live before? I was wondering if maybe he’d been in anything I’d seen on television, but he doesn’t look familiar. I do think he’s probably funny, though.
Here’s something I thought many of you might not have seen before— it’s a kuruyemiş shop. All they sell are dried pulses, nuts, and seeds. You can either buy each item separately by weight, or you can get a mixed bag. I love nuts and pulses, and you would think this would make for a wholesome snack, but of course my two favourites are the least healthy ones— the roasted corn kernels (which are very greasy and I suspect are actually deep-fried), and these other things I don’t know the name of which are like….er… imagine those spheroid cheetos, but with peanuts inside of them. Yeah, kind of like that. Again, I think think they might be fried. Oh well, they’re tasty anyway.
I still can’t believe this weather— overcast and cool. It’s nearly June, for god’s sake! But believe me, I’m not complaining. We had some truly disgustingly hot weather last summer, and I’m not keen on a repeat.
I noticed today that I was having a different hesitation as regards picture-taking… When you’re a foreigner living in a tourist town, you spend a lot of effort in telling and showing people that you’re not a tourist. In my case, I’ve spent three years in this pursuit. But then you instantly unravel all your hard work the second a camera comes out of your pocket. Still though, I noticed when I took the photo of the kuruyemiş shop, the owner just smiled and waved and let me get on with it. Then he said something in German and I smiled and went on my way (Turks are very talented at guessing nationality, and though I don’t speak much German myself, ethnically speaking the kuruyemiş guy guessed exactly right— my parents are German). So maybe I should play the tourist thing up instead of down. It seemed to work for me today.