The Things You Notice First

I should update y'all on the trips, but right now I'd rather tell you about the random unexpected things, the salt and pepper of my stay:

--The symbols on bathroom doors: the man is smoking a pipe, the woman wears a hoop skirt.

--Hard white balls are in most sinks and drains. They look like tiny golf balls and smell like moth balls. Apparently it's to prevent rank smells from seeping out of the sewer... (at first I thought -- did someone lose their marbles?)

--Children begging no matter where you go in city centers. It's hard to get used to. They peddle tissues or jewelry or other trinkets and they don't leave.

--Men kissing each other on the cheeks in greeting and parting. And being touchy-feely by American standards. Here it is much more accepted for men to greet each other with hugs and kisses than to kiss a stranger of the opposite sex.

--Insane hospitality. So kind, but also suffocating at times, because I feel obliged to reciprocate. Our instructor had to remind us that when shop owners serve you free cups of tea, you still don't have to purchase anything.

--At the beach or in outdoor activities, men in their 30s and 40s wearing short-shorts (but never in the city). A throwback to the 80's?

--Squatting toilets.

--No women wear spaghetti-strap shirts in the city, but most wear heels and tight clothing and make-up. The uniquely Turkish blending of Islamic modesty with cosmopolitanism. (But the women in newspaper and magazine advertisements are always half-naked, as in the rest of Europe.)

--Strong black tea with sugar at every meal, between meals, and after meals. Or Turkish coffee. The whole nation is in a perpetual state of caffeination.

I'll add more as I notice them... Thank you for all your comments and suggestions up till now, and keep them coming! I will make sure to eventually answer/address every one.

Now I have to go to bed because I am exhausted... Each day my Turkish gets a tiny bit better, while my English worsens by leaps and bounds... By the end of this trip, I'll have to write in two-word sentences...

*****

By the way, re: beggar with scale (see end of "So Much Turkish!"). As several people have mentioned, the scale is exactly what it purports to be -- a way for people who have no scale at home to weigh themselves, and pay for it. Apparently scales are expensive/hard to get in Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries? Or people just have urgent cravings to know their weight? (I would, too, given the insane richness of Turkish food...)

However, as my teacher here pointed out, the scale is also a way for those uncomfortable with pure begging to offer a simple service. It lends a measure of dignity to an otherwise lowly occupation...

One of my favorite things about traveling, and writing: the way scratching at a simple question or mystery usually uncovers something more fundamental about the way people work...