Breakfast and other true stories

I. It appears I'm sticking with the trend for now. Breakfast/brunch is, in all seriousness, one of my favorite things in the world. Pictured above (click to enlarge...I'm going to stop typing that reminder one day) is what I eat for breakfast on an average day. "Kahvaltı", if you will. Fresh bread, some sort of meat, spreadable cheese (cream cheese, but different), three kinds of cheese, jam (!!!), and olives. On this particular morning I had "ıhlamur" to drink (linden tea) which was created with fresh leaves that my family brought home from Bodrum (!). Variations of the above breakfast include: tost, other fresh pastries, omelette or hard boiled egg...Yeah, true. "Tost" is, you guessed it, a toasted sandwich usually filled with cheese or maybe cheese and "sucuk" (super tasty sausage).

II. Yesterday was Dan's birthday, so we met up and...ate. Yeah yeah, more about food! My goal for the day was to buy a book so I would be prepared for my upcoming road trip, so I wanted to meet at Taksim to wander around the bookstores there. So, we met up in Taksim and ended up skipping over the bookstores. We did see a really awesome street band for a second which was overshadowed by the house music bumping from an empty bar in the late afternoon - asshole move much? We wandered down to Eminönü and peeped a fresh fish market and then took the vapur (steamship/steamer) to Kadıköy. In Kadıköy, more wandering of course, but also scoped an amazing bookstore and outrageous book market (!!!!!! DREAM WORLD) before I treated him to some birthday pastries and tea. Then we headed back via vapur to Eminönü.

For your information, the two parts of the city we were traveling between are on DIFFERENT. CONTINENTS. So, if you think about it: for less than a couple lira you can have amazing views of the city from the sea and travel between continents. Kind of out of control? Hopefully I'll never take it for granted because the view is outrageous. Dan was bummin' because you can't smoke on them any more (new smoking ban)...totally shattered part of his dream life he had all planned out for himself. Back in Europe (haha) we walked along the Galata Köprüsü (click for picture) to find a reasonable fish place to eat dinner and drink rakı. After a couple run-ins with hilariously aggressive restaurant bros, we found a reasonable one and had some good fish and rakı. I had mackerel and Dan, living dangerously, got a mystery fish. It all ended up delicious. We then headed back to Taksim, where we had our second dessert of the day. We did get exercise walking up to Taksim though! I got some crazy dank pudding when I thought I was ordering cheesecake and Dan got something that was delicious and tasted like Frosted Flakes.

We went somewhere close to end the night with a beer, in which Dan had a hilarious exchange with the waitress. He was speaking Turkish correctly when asking the waitress a question (as far as I can tell...for whatever that's worth, right?) but the waitress was immediately fear-stricken and called over her friend to translate. I kind of figure it's the same sort of thing that some people do with ESL speakers. Like, people hear the accent and are automatically like: "I have no idea what this person is saying WHAT IS THIS PERSON SAYING holy shit I don't understand a thing that is coming out of their mouth" etc. So, we've got our work cut out for us. Then, with a good buzz on I rushed to catch the last bus in which I sat across from my friend Alex's doppelganger. That was weird.

In the end, I was worried about aaaaall the money I spent throughout the day, and then realized that it was equivalent to approximately $37. So, for 55TL I got: dessert #1 for Dan and I (2 pastries, a tea, a fresh lemonade), a book (You are Not a Stranger Here), dinner for me (fresh bread, delicious olive oil with crushed up olives, huge fish, rakı; with a sick view/right on the water, no less), dessert #2 for me (puddng and tea), beers for Dan and I, then another beer for just me. THANK YOU.

III. Totally not related (what is?): I just opened up my notebook and have an entry from this exact date last year. It is pretty much hilarious. You know the guy on State St. in Madison who sells Street Pulse? Particularly right in front of Walgreens? Well, a year ago today he complimented me on my outfit, not once, not twice, but three times in one day. I also felt it was important to talk about eating at Chipotle for the first time (ffffffff burrito!!!!!) and people watching. Dang that was some straight strugglin'.

Well. Today (like, this evening) we're leaving for Antalya (click for picture) for almost a week. It's a 12 hour drive both ways. The temperature there is approximately 89 degrees. That's right, I need a vacation from my vacation life. I will most likely be coming back with a sunburn and most definitely be coming back with 100000 pictures. See you in ~da future~

# of times I used "delicious" in this post: 3
# of times I used "hilarious" in this post: 3. FML