To Market

Friday is one of the three market days in Fethiye, when farmers from the surrounding countryside (as far away as the Banana Coast) come to sell their wares. Heaps of greens, from nettles to bunches of arugula (25 cents each!), sit alongside 3 foot long leeks, sugar sweet seedless mandarins (50 cents a pound!), home cured olives and olive oil, raw milk, strawberries, kiwi fruit, quince, and an endless assortment of the freshest fruits and vegetables... it is a foodie's paradise.  Products are priced by the kilo, and the vendors don't seem to like dealing with less than 1/2 kilo, so it would be hard to shop for one person! After they weigh your selection using old fashioned iron counterweights, they usually throw in a couple extra pieces of what you just bought as a kind of bonus.

After the Friday market is a stop at the fish market, probably the best thing about Fethiye. Fresh locally caught fish, calamari and prawns from the Mediterranean and hamsi (anchovies) shipped from the Black Sea crowd for space in an open air square in the middle of town. If you want to eat your selection on the spot, any one of the restaurants around the square will cook it up per your specifications and serve it up with bread and salad for around $3 per person.

Clear weather after a week of rain

Tomorrow is Christmas and Helena is cooking dinner for 15 people - a collection of expats from various countries. Otherwise, I would probably just forget that it's Christmastime since it is all business-as-usual in this Muslim country.