Nov 04, 2009 11:19am ( Istanbul )

It would seem the weather has it in for me. Rain again this morning, so I´ll just write a little and upload another photo. This one is the dinner that Angelo cooked with the fish that İ bought at the local fish market. Leaving the head and skin on is the standard way to prepare fish here. So while it looks a bit unpalatable, it was actually very good - tender and juıcy. Of course, your scrape off the skin and don´t eat the head but that should go without saying.

We also ate salad in olive oil. Four of us ate dinner together and while we each had our own plate of fish, the salad and another strange dish were communal - in the center of the table for everyone to pick from. Turks, like Angelo, use silverware, but the couple from Saudi Arabia and Morocco ate with there hands. Different countries, dıfferent customs.

This place is starting to become familiar. I know the transportation system very well. İ know the neighborhoods and can even pronounce them. The computer can still be a challenge because all words in Microsoft Windows (buttons, warnings, etc) are all in Turkish. İ´m starting to learn some basic turkish words and İ have a solid grasp of the differences between their culture and other muslim countries. Turks are strangely similar to Americans. They say they owe that to theır greatest leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, from the 1920´s. He stripped them of their strict muslim culture and forced them to become westernized.

All things considered, Turkey is a great country to visit.