Corinne CrawfordI awoke the following morning and got myself up and ready to have breakfast at the carpet shop and walked 8 minutes mostly uphill to get there. My apartment was located at the bottom of a hill and the fastest way to get to the main square in old town was a pretty steep uphill climb. I did end up going the long way around that wasn’t quite so steep a good portion of the time on the really hot days. I arrived at the shop and was welcomed up to the sitting area on the 3rd floor and had breakfast with Dewran and several of his cousins and an uncle. And of course, tea. Always tea. I had tea with so many wonderful people and being invited to have tea with someone is a great way to accept their hospitality, have a nice chat with someone but not be committed to anything more than a quick glass of hot tea.
I was going to go to the grocery store and get some work done but was invited back in the afternoon to have tea again and play some backgammon. I located a good grocery store where I found most of what I needed then went back to my room and tried to sign on to get some work done. But for whatever reason, the way the Wi-Fi was configured, it would not allow me to log in to my work VPN. I went to talk to the hotel manager and he said he would get the IT person out the following day to see if they could configure it differently to allow the VPN connection. In the meantime, I had to get some work done and even had a video meeting the following day and was getting worried about where I was going to be able to take this meeting. When I went back for tea and backgammon later in the afternoon to Dewran’s carpet shop, during the conversation I mentioned my problem with the internet and without hesitation, the family at the carpet shop told me that I was always welcome at their shop and could work up in their office at any time. I was so grateful and assured them that if the internet did not get resolved at my hotel, I would definitely be taking them up on that offer.
And of course, the following day, the IT guy still had not showed up so I packed up my computer in my backpack and headed to the carpet shop. This time, they offered me lunch and of course tea and in between work and meetings, I played several games of backgammon. They even offered me a free ticket on one of the river boat cruises that went up and down the Bosphorus.
It was a a beautiful day and I enjoyed the 2 ½ hours on the river looking at the coastline on both the Europe and Asia sides of the city.
Before I headed back to my apartment to cook dinner, I went to one of the many spice shops to try to find something I could “spice” up my chicken with.
I tried to explain that to the man with very little English at the shop that I was just looking for a little something to add to my chicken for this evening. Once he understood I was saying chicken- he simply pointed to the bin directly in front of me that said “chicken spice”. Duh, yea, that would do the trick. I bought a small amount and I went back to my apartment and cooked a great chicken and vegetable dinner.
