Word Vomit

This morning we changed things up a bit with a 2 hour drive to the Toyota manufacturing plant and logistics center. The brother of our Turkish professor works here and he gave us a tour. It was actually pretty interesting because we are able to see a lot of concepts in action that we discussed in my operations management class last semester.

We were back in Istanbul by late afternoon, and had a few hours of free time before dinner. Lauren and I decided to go shopping. The salespeople here must have a huge chunk of income tied to commission because they're extremely pushy and won't leave you alone. So anyway, while Lauren was trying on some clothes I walked down to another shop. I had made it all the way to the back and hadn't found anything, so the guy informed me that there was more upstairs.

As I'm browsing up there, he asks me, "Are you from Germany?"

"No, I'm from America (that's the only thing they understand here, they don't call it the U.S. or the states)"

"Oh really? I'm from Iraq."

Obviously not thinking about where I am, my automatic response to that word comes out. "My brother's in Iraq."

"What's he doing there?"

Now I've realized what I just said, what country I'm in, and that me and this Iraqi are alone on the second floor. As I'm making my way back to the stairs, I go ahead and state the obvious. "He's in the army."

"I want to go to America. But I don't have a visa. Can you help me get a visa?" And then I walk out of the store without looking back. So that was an interesting experience. . .

We had yet another, traditional Turkish dinner. By now we're beginning to get tired of having 5 courses of the same things every night for dinner. This restuarant was in great location though, off a main road and down the "flower passage." Hopefully we'll have a little more variety (and a little less food) once we start travelling around the country.