Can I Have Fries With That?

Forget the bazaars, the mosques, the language, and the heat. What's gonna shock-the-hell-outa-ya is the myriad of choices of what to eat.

Not only that, but as well as a huge range of options, you're gonna be amazed by how many of them you've never seen nor heard of before.

What follows is a tiny one minute clip of a typical street in İstanbul, which just happens to be near my sister-in-laws house.

Underneath the vid are details of what's on offer. Enjoy.

Çiğköfte

I'm still to sample the 'real McCoy' as the raw meat variety has been 'outlawed'.

Börek

And so many kinds - all superb.

Kedi

Compulsory near any foodshop.

Kokoreç

Think haggis. However, for my feeble stomach, much less palatable.

Scooter

Not normally edible, but hey, they're everywhere for that super quick delivery.

Turşu

You can choose from a ridiculously large variety of pickles and such-like.

Kebap

If you don't know about these, you've probably been living under a rock.

Lahmacun

Think mini-pizza, but better.

Ekmek

This quite simply translates to 'bread'. But this is no ordinary bread. This is something you will become addicted to in just the same manner as Coke. Directly from the oven, hot and delicious!

Baklava

Sugar heaven.

And there's so much more than this tiny snippet...

Welcome to 2016

It's been some time since I've "seen in" the new year.

After having a full Turkish spread, which curiously included turkey, we played a few card games and watched Avatar.

A great night was had by all.

Treat Others As...

I will always treat others the way I want to be treated.

I live my life in the following way. 

This is so that everyone can benefit the most from my actions.

For my own physical and mental health it's important to put me first. However, this doesn't mean at the expense of someone else.

To give an example: We have a cat and I dearly love her and enjoy her company. For me, however, the most important thing is her life. How is she? Is she really happy? What can I do to help her get the most from life?

I know that cat's are very independent animals and they love to play outside. Currently our cat is very small and most of the time we keep her inside away from dangers. I think this isn't so fun for her, especially when we leave her inside all day by herself. Think of a lion in a cage at the zoo. They often go crazy or get very depressed about life.

So every now-and-then I go outside with her and let her run around. As she's getting older and I want her to learn about the outside world so she can stay out there by herself. Thus I am now starting to let her be out for much longer times and by herself.

There is a chance I might not find her again if she wanders off somewhere else. But by letting her go outside like this I'm saying that her enjoyment of her life is more important than my enjoyment of her.

There is also a chance something bad might happen to her, but this is karma and up to a higher being - not up to me - I don't own her - she's not mine. I guess that this is exactly the same approach as dealing with a child. Parents protect and educate them, but eventually they have to let them go and discover life's adventures by themselves.

Unfortunately, I see some people work the other way. They are more interested in using animals and people for their own benefit.

Rather than thinking about what's best for the other person, or considering their needs, they think only of themselves. They usually want to control the other persons actions and are regularly telling others what to do.

It's very common for these kinds of people to be bad listeners. This is because they aren't interested in what others want or feel. They're mainly thinking only of themselves.

This is very sad, because ultimately they are not only controlling other people, but they are also limiting their own lives. They become dependant on this control.

I believe it's fairly obvious that this kind of attitude is against the Bible, Koran, Buddhist thinking etc.


Essentially we're talking about givers and takers.

~//~