Eating in a Foreign Country

People back home ask me ALL the time, "What is the food like?" Well that depends on what exactly you are asking. Are you asking what is Turkish food like? Or are you asking what is the food that I eat like? The answers to these questions are very different. Turkish food is good, but I cannot and do not eat it every day. It consists of a lot of bread and cheese and meat! I like all this but do get tired of it. I havent discovered a lot of variety, but some of my favorites are lahmacun, tavuk sis durum, tavuk doner, iskender, and borek. I normally eat Turkish about 3-4 times weekly. The rest of the time I eat American food :) whether I go out to eat or cook it in my apartment. This past week I have done a lot of both. On Monday, school was cancelled due to local elections so a few teachers went out to Chili's for dinner. It just opened here like a month ago and so it is still very American and very good. Drinks with ice, bottomless chips and salsa, quesadilla explosion salad, and free refills on the drinks. It was AMAZING. On Wednesday, I had to go to the Emniyet to apply for my visa. I had gotten a sub for the whole day, because normally it is an all day process. BUT I was out of there by 10am, so I spent the rest of the day playing around the city. Another teacher and I went to the mall that had an Arby's in it. Now I love Arby's...even in the states it is one of my favorite fast food restaurants. So that was a very special treat, and once again very good! mmmm yummy curly fries! Friday night, Julie and I decided we wanted to go to the movies, so we headed to a mall near school after work. Before the movie (we saw Marley and Me and it was a wonderful movie) we ate dinner at a burger place called Num Num's. Nothing like a good cheeseburger and fries.

Cooking a very American dinner. Chicken Chimichangas (made with Yufka - a turkish pastry like thing). And the best part was THE CHEESE DIP. They dont have tortilla chips here or velvetta, or rotel tomatoes. So when Julie's parents came to visit they brought us some...along with many other goodies. This morning for breakfast we had bacon and bisquick biscuits!

The joys of American food....it makes me happy :)