Travels in Turkey

At the Askehir bus station waiting to go to Izmir. We had a 6 hour wait at the bus station. One of the things we did was try to get something to eat. This was the restaurant at the bus station. We were to go in and sit down and they would come ask us what we wanted to eat, there were no menus. The only problem was no one spoke English and we did not speak Turkish. Jeff remembered that the Turkish phrase book we had contains a section on ordering from a menu, so he got the phrase book out and showed it to the man who ran the restaurant. The man was able to go down through the list of food on the menu section and point out foods they served. We were able to order our dinner according to the foods he pointed out. 

We ended up each having a bowl of lamb stew, a shepherd’s salad, and a basket of bread. Jeff had coca-cola and Ang drank sul (water) and we finished each with a glass of çay. This is where we learned the word çay. Jeff wanted the Turkish tea and the only thing in the phrase book that came close to that was Turkish coffee. So he ordered Turkish coffee only to find out that it really was coffee. After some discussion, a man sitting near by yelled out “Çay!” as if frustrated with our arguement. The magic word. The man who ran the restaurant took the coffee and brought us çay. Again we were apologizing, but this time with tea in our hands.

Jeff and I were able to use the water closet at the bus station to change clothes, shave, and wash up a bit. 

In the bus station, some of the Turkish men were watching us play Slap Jack and laughing. Jeff went over and showed them how to play by dealing the deck and pointing to each one of them to lay down a card. When a Jack came up Jeff pointed and slapped it. Both guys shook their head, understanding. Then the game was on. They thought it was pretty funny.