Dusting things up in Turkey

Walked around site, perhaps my first while people were actively doing "real" construction as opposed to finish work. watched them pour some concrete, nearly run over a worker crouching out of view of the driver, attempting to dig a hole without shoring (to prevent cave-in). It seems like obvious stuff, but it's mostly just keeping folks from cutting corners.Or getting run over by dump trucks. You know, the usual.

We ordered lunch through the post staff, and ate in the dining room. Somebody told me that it wasn't real Turkish food because there were "no flies," which was kind of awkward. A few emails and more face-to-face chats to get a better picture of things than I can sitting in DC, followed by a cab ride to the mall.

Do you want to take the car or the horse to the mall?

We had dinner at "Kenturkeyfried chicken." It's really a KFC, but I thought that nickname was funny. There seem to be around two to three dozen restaurants in the food court, but our contractors apparently only eat a select few and those are predominantly American chains. Normally, I'd eschew these places in favor of something more local, but one of the guys in our group ate at KFC so much that the staff treated him like was Col Sanders and shook his hand. And I wanted to see that. Apparently, and even funnier, when he didn't eat there (like the days he cheated on them in plain view at McDonald's), they sent a coffee over to him. Oh, and there were flies on the KFC. Go figure.

After dinner, I bought Turkish delights at another store in the mall and spent the next two hours in the executive lounge at the hotel drinking wine, talking business, and telling life stories. Overall, not too bad a day.