Please come to a complete stop!

2001: Assignment Turkey!

I was immediately enthralled by their culture, the Mediterranean spices in their food (particularly lamb), and their pop music. However, my first obsession wasn't the delicious food or the pop music. It was their stop signs. They were prevalent on base and off base.

This, my friends, is a Turkish stop sign--my very own piece of Turkey.

No, I don't have any wild stories of riding in a dolmuş full of friends while Tarkan blared through the speakers as we embarked on a rebellious quest to get ourselves some stop signs....Although, that would have been pretty awesome (if it wasn't against the law, of course!). I can see my imaginary caper of stop sign thieves dining on Adana kabobs and naan bread afterwards, relishing in our shenanigans.

No misadventures were to be had in my acquisition of my favorite household decoration. There was an alley of shops right outside the base (conveniently dubbed The Alley). The major thing I remember about Turkey is how friendly the locals were. I was friends with a lot of the shop keepers. To this day, I miss the friends I had made while I was there.

I confided to my friends who owned a carpet shop that I loved the stop signs and wished I had one to take back with me. It turned out that they knew someone who worked for the division responsible for stop signs! I gave them some money to have two stop signs painted, and  my quest was complete. I sent the second one to my father as a Christmas gift.