The chairs and tables are grouped. I picked some greenery from around our area, pepper berry trees, olive branches and some other flowers of which names I do not know. They look pretty but a little big on the table when lots of people are sitting. The vases are the bottoms of old hookahs, a little akward but ok.
Pinar taking a little break to read the paper.
Our wall of books and magazines, a mix of English and Turkish. I want to start a book exchange later.
Kitchen view with everything unpacked.
Second kitchen view with the tea machine and little oven. Teas is the staple/ coffee of Turkish culture so that little machine is important. We have one lady working for us. Every morning she makes the tea, helps with cleaning, cooking whatever needs to be done. Then Caglar has it set up that students come and work 4 or so hours at a time also helping with cleaning and serving. (Ask me later what we pay them...)
This is the outside of our beautiful toilets. I know that toilets don't sound exciting but the previous toilet was disgusting. It was located where the bar is now, on the patio and it smelled disgusting. Our new toilets, first there are two of them, boys and girls. Secondly they are not Turkish style, which is a hole in the ground that you squat over, they are real toilets. We have plans for seat covers and will always have toilet paper which is reason enough for me to come to our cafe since I have unwillingly gotten used to carrying toilet paper in my pocket. Also there are 4 sinks and plenty of soap. They will always be clean. I love our toilets.
This view is as you walk in the door.
The first day we opened Caglar walked me outside past the cafe and then back to it. He says look at the cafe...we both thought it looked cool and like we would want to visit so that is good. This is the night view. The photo doesn't do it justice. Caglar is sitting in the front playing tavla(backgammon) which is the national board game of Turkey, I don't think officially but maybe. They play it so freaking fast!
So this is our cafe so far. We opened it in hopes that later Pinar can run it and Caglar and I can travel and then eventually live in U.S of A at least part of the year. As most people who read this blog know that I supported myself for years on the bar and restauraunt biz because American culture says tip, it can be really good money. In Turkey tips are rare especially from students(fancy restaurants yes but only like 10%). It is strange for me still not to tip, I over tipped for years and years- good karma for servers. Also my minimal Turkish language skills make it hard. I want to work. I like working and I don't mind serving but can't do it very well now because I try and then the people start talking fast and I need Caglar to come over. I am learning though slowly.
One funny thing...I got a new nickname since we've been working on the cafe, Irouk(spelling???). The carpenter gave it to me. How I understand it is there are this subculture of mountain people in Turkey. The women work really hard on the mountain and they are called Irouk. Anyways I couldn't speak to the workmen so I was trying to always clean and was sometimes heavy lifting whatever needed to be done. Funny nickname, mountain woman, Emily.
There are tons of English people that have bought property in Turkey, especially Didim. This is a plus for us since I can speak to them. We can advertise in the local English paper, etc.
Slowly we will add more little details to the inside but the next big project is our beautiful seaside garden. The days seem to be slow but last night was good. Lots of students came to drink beer or nescafe. Hopefully the word will spread!
