American OJ isn't good

               Turkey is the land of oranges. In Selcuk, there were orange trees lining the streets, branches full of fruit. Same in Bodrum and towns all over the center of the country.

               Lots of oranges means lots of freshly squeezed orange juice, and when you compare it to the store-bought American variety, well, there’s no competition at all.

               For the uninitiated, freshly squeezed orange juice means walking up to the café/stand, pointing at a pile of oranges, and watching as the man or woman slices a few in half, puts them into a juicer, and pulls the handle, sending the nectar falling into an awaiting glass below.

               The result is half a liter of the sweetest semi-pulpy liquid you’ve ever tasted. It’s refreshing- perfect for a hot day- and more satisfying than water. It goes well with breakfast, lunch, or an after-dinner snack. Better yet, it’s cheap, costing no more than a couple dollars.

               The American packaging often says “100% Orange Juice” and/or “Not from concentrate”. Which is all well and good, but the contents start to break down and the flavor settles at the bottom between juicing and serving. The box usually tells you to “shake well”, but by that point no amount of mixing can bring back what the original fruit had to offer.

               If you’re not an orange fan, they usually offer pomegranate and peach as well. But no Syracuse student would dare reject their own school’s fruit, right? 

Çay (Tea)

               There’s something on every Turkish menu that’s cheaper than water- and I mean EVERY Turkish menu: tea.

               In the United States, we talk about tea as a drink category. There’s green tea, jasmine tea, chamomile tea, etc. There’s also iced tea, sweet tea, and the mumbo jumbo they serve at Starbucks.

               In Turkey, tea is tea. Sure, occasionally you come across apple tea or pomegranate tea, but when you ask for “tea” (çay in Turkish, pronounced “chai”), you are asking for a very specific thing. Straight hot tea, served in a vase-like cup on a dish with a spoon and one or two cubes of sugar.

               These babies are downed like there’s no tomorrow. Post-meal at a café? Tea is ordered for everyone at the table (and people are sometimes shocked if you don’t). People-watching on the street? Tea time. Riding the ferry? The option is there. Shopping at a bazaar? One tea upon entry, three more before exiting.

               I tried desperately for years to become addicted to tea, or at least, to like drinking it. I tried all the flavorings and styles, and apart from lemon iced tea in a can, I never got far. That all changed when I came here.

               Am I an addict? Not by any definition. But I find myself ordering it more and more often, and sometimes forgo bored-eating for bored-tea-drinking. It cuts down on the calories, and it’s damn good.

Turkey has a chocolate addiction (and it's awesome)

               Life is full of pleasant surprises, and this one happens to be my favorite so far: Turkey has a chocolate addiction.

               I expected that my sweet tooth wouldn’t be starved when I planned for this semester. Istanbul is full of baklava shops, Turkish ice cream stalls, and loads of Turkish delight. However, I figured chocolate would be hard to come by in this country, given its historical food preferences. Boy, I was wrong.

               Every restaurant here has at least one recipe that includes chocolate. Same with bakeries. You can get chocolate bread, chocolate chip bread, rolls with chocolate filling, and gözleme (a Turkish quesadilla, sans-cheese) with chocolate inside. Supermarket stores are stocked with Nutella, which competes with honey for being Turkey’s national condiment. Nutella is Turkey’s peanut butter- which itself is hard to find, I may add.

               So chocolate lovers, rejoice! Istanbul isn’t a chocolate desert. Although I do recommend trying the baklava when you have some time to spare.