photos from the weekend 8/09

Top, midye ("mussels") last night. Simply the best after rounds of beer. Sellers like this one dot the streets in Taksim every 100 yards or so. You can negotiate the price, the Turksih students tell me, and almost always get what you want. Last night we had 10 for 5 TL. Inside is the mussel stuffed with spiced rice. The guy peels back the shell to drizzle a fresh cut lemon. Typically you do this with a group of people. He will pass them out, one after another. I can take back 20 of these things easily... they are delicious.

Second from top, good picture of the Istanbul students. The girl on the right is a new one to me. She's very friendly and bubbly and fun to talk to. Sheyma is to the left. She does most of the unofficial coordinating for our little weekend trips.

Third from top, this is at a Nargile cafe, his name is Zito. I don't know what kind of face he's making but it makes me laugh every time I see it. We made random friends with him. He's from Malaysia spending time in Istanbul doing some international student congress thing. I guess they discuss issues like politics and the environment. Fun guy.

Fourth from top, I like this photo of us guys. This was last Friday night. It was the first time Erdem had met the Egyptians. He was fascinated with them. We ended up having a lot of good pharmacy discussions. He gets their contact info and has these ideas to buy medicines from Egypt - apparently a lot of items are very cheaply produced.

I told Erdem, earlier that night, the Egyptians don't drink alcohol. He jokingly, as if it was his personal challenge, does his best to coerce them but it's to avail. We had a fun night.

Bottom, last week Erdem had been in negotiations with the property manager about posting this sign to put on a gate to the next door parking garage. As usual, Erdem is a very business-savvy man and had a close friend in advertising to print the material. I had seen him fiddling with this design on his Mac only 2 days before. He asked me what I thought about the orange and I agree it's refreshing and something different from the ubiquitous red and white we see everywhere.