I can't believe this completely slipped my mind when mentioning Istanbul. I guess this is what I get for postponing documentation of moments while traveling. On Saturday night, after the Turkish baths, Can and I were walking along the pedestrian street. I mentioned I was hungry and wouldn't last through a beer celebrating St. Patrick's Day if I didn't get food in me first. It was pretty damn cold out that night, windy, and sprinkling a little. Pedestrian streets in those weather conditions lead to umbrellas everywhere, begging to poke your eyeballs out. Can and I were dodging people and umbrellas so it was a few minutes before he said, "would you try something if you didn't know what it was until afterwards?" If I were in the US, I would probably cringe and potentially say no...but I'm traveling so the answer was of course "yes!"...but none the less with a bit of a cringe on my face. We approached this really busy restaurant that looked like a bit of a fast food type place. Actually, it reminded me of Steak and Shake for some reason. As per usual protocol with Can, he ordered my food for me with the only request from day one meeting him that I always get local, Turkish food. I drank some ayran (a yogurt drink) while we waited on our food.
Our food arrived which turned out to be sandwiches. They were approximately eight inches long by four inches wide at the thick end. It was probably half a loaf of the fluffy white bread, grilled. I took a bite. Spicy. I thought for a moment and took another bite. My first reaction was "hmm...yum, yeah...I think it's yum." My next thought was whether to savor it in my mouth to attempt to determine exactly what I was eating. I ate a couple more bites, half wanting to devour it, half wondering if I should be repulsed. I went with the first thought and continued to devour it. With about a quarter of it left and absolutely no clue what it was, I slowly looked inside the sandwich for any clues. It appeared to be meat of some sort, maybe some onions, and a red tomato based sauce. Nope, there was no way I could tell what it was. I opened the sandwich a little more...still nothing.
Okay, I thought, I guess I will go ahead and just devour the rest of it. Once Can and I both finished, he gave me one of his typical, in-quizzical expressions. I had no guesses. Drum roll please......
Lamb intestines. Yes, it was lamb intestines I just ate. And I enjoyed it?! Then my US "societal norm" thinking kicked in. Was I repulsed? Should I gag now? Would I really want to puke this back up if I did get myself repulsed enough? That seemed to be the only certain thing I could answer. It was good going down but I sure as hell didn't want to experience it a second time. So was I actually repulsed? Would I eat it again? Then Can broke my thought process. Would you like another one? Hmm...I wasn't sure I could even come up with an answer for that. He broke in with, let's return after the Irish Pub if we are still hungry. I agreed...and figured with a drink or two in my system then I might even welcome a second one, but I still wasn't too sure about before that.
These are the experiences in travel that you embrace. The moments of being "lost" in another culture...be it on their streets, attempting to communicate with no common language while on their public transportation, trying their food, eating a termite off the tree because the local guy in front of you just did it, and so on. New experiences and situations and people are what drive me. Being out of my comfort zone, taking a deep breath, and realizing it is my inner self and thoughts that make moments and experiences what they are, and then embracing them.
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