Turkish Hospitality

We were met by our host, Heyrettin Kenan, at the airport.  He patiently waited over an hour for us to come through baggage claim because of our lost luggage.  Our minibus pulled up to the curb quickly and took us on a short ride to a restaurant for dinner.  My stomach was a bit confused at this point since we had had two dinners last night, and had been served "breakfast" on the plane a few hours before.  Fortunately we were all hungry again.  We were served a wonderful meal of traditional Turkish food with a variety of appetizers, kebobs for dinner, and a dessert called kunefe which had thin pasta noodles, melted cheese and a sweet syrup on it.  Everything was delicious.  I can tell this is another trip where we will be fed well.  

Our host is an English teacher for a police academy here in the city.  We had a great discussion at dinner about cultural identity and where Americans say they are "from" when asked...the city where they were born, where they currently live, or where their parents or grandparents live.  He says he is from the Black Sea even though he has lived his whole life in Istanbul because his grandparents are from the Black Sea.

Our dinner stop

I was so proud of the students when they immediately started trying to use a few Turkish words such as 'sow' - thank you, and ordering the drinks in Turkish - veeshni (cherry juice) and Ky-ish-ee (apricot juice).  We don't have drinks quite this tasty at home.

dessert

Dessert would not be complete without Turkish chai (tea).