Gastromic Delights

Another fellow and I flew into Bucharest from Istanbul this morning. We are waiting around at the hotel for the four other fellows on this leg of the trip to arrive from Porto and Bilbao.

Thanks to Mom and Bobbi for updates on the M's. It is a little tough to keep up on this side of the pond. Let's hope they pick it up and the Angels start to lose some games.

So the whole Turkey thing...

I had an absolutely wonderful time in Turkey. I would have to say the highlight would be the food in Turkey. It was a gastronomic delight to eat Turkish food noon and night. They bring lots of food, a great variety, and it is all good. They have this amazing flat bread that is good by itself, but there is always something good to put on the bread to make it even better.

I was a little less enthusiastic about the first lunch. It was primarily seafood. The brought the bread and a tray with six different appetizers. I left the sea food along, but the vegetables were great. Lunch was a sea bass, which everyone else said was to die for, but I was just able to eat most of it. Seafood has never been my thing, so I'm doing all right with that. But it would not be my favorite meal. Dessert on the other had was an amazing chocolate/ice cream concoction that was just wonderful.

Dinner that night was just down the street. I had the chicken kabobs. We started dinner with mini pizza's and cheese rolls that were outstanding. The bread and toppings kept flowing until the main course arrived. No dessert that night because we had already eaten too much. It was a great dinner.

Lunch the next day was another fabulous meal. The bread, the toppings, and I ordered a pizza with mince meat, Turkish sausage, and pastrami. It was very, very good. The dessert tray was large and I had an eclair with ice cream in the middle instead of cream. I also had a bite of a Turkish dessert that was quite good.

Dinner in Istanbul that night was, again, very very good. Of course you had the bread with assorted toppings, I ordered a steak that was wonderful. The service of the waiter was outstanding. I had some ice cream for dessert. By this time I am hurting from all the Turkish food. You are full, but it is so good you can't stop yourself.

Lunch and dinner yesterday were seafoody, so I didn't eat a lot. That was just fine with me. I needed to recover a little. Everyone that went to Turkey just loved the food.

I can't think of enough superlatives to describe the great delights of Turkish food. I know we ate in some upscale places, but they were great.

The programs in Turkey were good for the most part. The first day in Ankara we visited Anitkabir, the resting place of Ataturk, the founder of the country. It was pretty neat and definitely large in scope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anitkabir

We also visited the Turkish Parliament. They were out of session, getting ready for the elections in July. The elections were a topic of conversation that was brought up several times. The elections will possibly change many of the policies, but no one knows for sure.

Lunch was with a diplomat from the US, Turkey, and Germany. It was a good and sometimes heated discussion on the US-Turkey-EU relationships that are very dynamic at the moment in all directions. Turkey's integration into the EU is a constant theme in Turkey and Europe.

In the afternoon we met with the President of Religious Affairs. It is a post in Turkey that has no US equivalent. It was a very formal meeting and you got a slice of the official meeting protocol in Turkey.

Dinner was on are own at Tike. Please see the above description. We went up to the Hilton Tower in Ankara to have tea and coffee with a view. We had meetings in Ankara the next morning. The first was with Flying Broom, a woman NGO that works on communication. Then we had individual meetings.

I met with two guys in the Ministry of Agriculture. We talked about pollution from runoff and how it harms fisheries. It was an interesting bureaucrat-to-bureaucrat discussion. The stamp on his desk could just as well have been on my desk. It was nice to see that red tape doesn't change depending on location. I'm sure the red tape in Turkey is somewhat different than in Montana, but I saw way to many similarities.

We headed out to the airport to catch a flight to Istanbul. We stayed in a hotel right next to the Galata tower in Istanbul.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galata_Tower

I have to say that I have never see traffic like you see in Turkey. There are virtually no traffic rules, people cross the street where ever and when ever they want. Drivers shift lanes constantly. You have to be so alert as a driver. I will never be able to complain about traffic anywhere in the states after see the chaos that is the streets of Ankara and Istanbul.

As I have said before, Istanbul is a beautiful city. It is dirty, but beautiful. There is something to a city that was founded in 700 BC and was the home to two of the great empires in history. Istanbul is the only municipality that straddles two continents. There is the European side and Asian side of the city. It is city of anywhere from 14 to 17 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul

Well I got to get going at the moment. I will fill you in on the details of Istanbul when I get a chance.

The trip is going well. I'm still going strong.