Friday, February 4th, 2005

Today featured much of the same, which I won’t get into, and some different things, of which I will speak. Today at AU we tested wireless access points, which was fun because I actually got to use the wireless on my laptop that I was so accustomed to in the USA. I tried to download cool programs to hack the connection with, but realized that to do anything worthwhile you really need Linux. Man, when am I going to get on that bandwagon? Probably when I get back to the states. I’d put it on my laptop, but I really don’t have enough room to do that, and have XP, and hold my extensive mp3 collection. Which is over 40 GB, after I deleted a ton of stuff the other day. But, I’m going to back everything up on one of our work computers and then repartition my hard drive, so maybe I will find some space. I doubt it though.

After work I went with Serdar and his friend Oktay to Kızılay. There we went in search of some kokareç, the sandwich made with ground up lamb intestines, in case you can’t remember. I had it once before, and this time it was even better! At this restaurant they add a bunch of diced vegetables into the mix, and it makes it even tastier. Lovely… we had two sandwiches each. Then, with me already stuffed, they had me try something else.

We had left the restaurant and wandered around until we found a guy on the street. I’ve seen them before. A guy stands next to a little table piled high with what looks to be oysters. People stand around and just wolf these things down, cracking them open and then scraping out the insides. I had always shied away because I figured they would make me sick, but after a little convincing I was up for trying some.

My observations were more or less correct. What I didn’t realize was that the oyster shells are filled with rice. I think they stuff rice in through the cracks, then boil them in spiced water of some kind. You crack one open, and there’s oyster meat along with piles of rice inside. You drip lemon juice over it, and then munch away. Each oyster only costs 10 kuruş (or 0.10 YTL, which used to be 10,000 TL!). You just stand around and eat until you can eat no more. Then the guy counts all the halves, divides by two, and that’s how much you pay! What a cheap way to eat. And as of two hours later, I’m feeling fine. Thumbs up for new experiences!

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3 pm on Saturday the 5th:

Well, I’m still fine. The random foods I ate yesterday have not affected me in the slightest. So, unless I die of salmonella in a few days, I encourage all of you to try new things, even if they look really weird.