Some Funny Things In Turkey

Today is Karen's last day working at The Incirlik Library - so I get to post two days in a row. The down side of not having a computer at home is I end up posting long after events happened. We may end up getting Internet but most likely we will continue just posting at the library. The local company charges $80 per month, wants three months up front, and we would have to buy a modem - so it's $300 just to start Internet service. The library will work just fine at those rates.

Today we are looking at a few unusual things about Turkey. Let's start out with the whole idea of copyrights and trademarks. In Turkey - there is no such thing. If there is, it is simply not enforced. That takes us to our first photo. Below we have the store "Disney World" in Adana, Turkey. You can see Karen and our friend Melissa Thompson coming out of the store if you click on the photo and blow it up. Now I don't know if the "XL" means trademark or copyright, but it clearly doesn't matter. I doubt that Disney has anything to do with this store. But the owner wants you to think it does, right? That clearly looks like your typical Disney writing to me. But this was the first Disney store I have ever been in that smelled of cigarettes and actually had people smoking in the store. Oh, did I mention there are not any actual Disney products in the store. You can find Spiderman, The Flintstones, Hana Barbara - but no Disney characters! I see Mickey and Minnie on the front window but they are not in the store anywhere.

But we had fun with the Thompson's looking at all the stuff that isn't actually Disney. Below, Joe and Melissa's son Cameron finds Disney's latest new character - Spiderman!

Everyone has heard about the Turkish toilets - the ones that are simply holes in the ground. The newer restaurants and offices have American style toilets but you still find the old hole in the ground quite frequently. Below is a toilet at a gas station in Mersin:

Below we see an American-style toilet at great restaurant we ate at in Adana with the Thompson's. The Turks definitely have a sense of humor. Each toilet has a photo of a famous woman above the toilet. If you look close you will see that the Sharon Stone is looking down at the male's package. Pretty funny. Luckily there wasn't a Turk in the restroom wondering why I was taking pictures in the bathroom!

And the Turks do celebrate a form of Christmas around New Year's Day. In the below photo you can actually see Santa and a reindeer on display at the mall in Mersin. I only caught the back because I was actually trying to get a photo of the penis-shaped balloons that seem to be all the rage. Karen I laughed every time we saw one at the mall. I'm not sure what they are supposed to be. If you blow this picture up you may be able to see one the kid is carrying.

Karen says hi to everyone. Bye for now!