On Strays, Backgammon and Nargile

Strays:

There are tons of cats and dogs wandering the streets of Izmir. We have about three cats that hang out by the lojman (faculty housing) and there are three or four more that loiter at the south gate. They look a bit like the cats in Grey Gardens - small, with tongues hanging out and lethargic. The dogs are even more lazy, finding a shady spot and parking it for the day. The interesting thing about all of these strays is the way the community takes care of them. As I was leaving the school lunchroom a couple days ago, a guard approached me. I was about to drop off my tray when he gestured to the chicken bones on my plate. He then indicated with a nod that he'd like to add my chicken bones to the tray he was collecting. "For dogs," he said. After this, I noticed in the evenings after dinner, walking along the streets, these small squares of newspapers upon which sat leftovers - köfte, lamb, bones and rice all sitting in glops. Whilst walking down to the bay, I interrupted a cat in the middle of a dinner of fava beans by a streetlamp.

Backgammon:

I'd not known that backgammon is such a popular game here, but walk down to the bars any evening and you'll see men and women young and old sitting over a table playing backgammon - others sit and play a game that looks like mahjong. I love backgammon so I'm gonna have to get me a board and play a few games with the locals. The thing people like to do while playing backgammon besides having a drink is to smoke the Nargile.

Nargile is the Turkish counterpart to the Hindu hookah. I've smoked a nargile twice since coming here. Both times at the Garden Cafe. Our ever-friendly waiter suggested we try cappuccino flavored tobacco, so we did. After a bit, friendly waiter arrives with the glass water pipe puffing away at the end of it to get it going. He then sets it down and throws a few wrapped plastic spigots or mouthpieces on the table and we go to it. It's a pretty social event, this water pipe smoking. The mouthpiece gets passed around and the heady smoke fills the evening air. Every few minutes happy waiter came through puffing on another pipe as he brought it to the table. Quite the enjoyable occupational hazard.

We hit Ikea today to get a bunch of stuff for our apartments. Tomorrow? We're off to Istanbul for three days. I'm hoping to get to see the hotel Agatha Christie used to stay in there. Apparently it's pretty chichi.