The Heat's On

Wow, these last couple days we've seen a steady rise in temperature.  No doubt about it now, summer is here.  The bright sky and warm nights are offset by the terrible humidity.  Not American midwest levels, but it's still enough to necessitate two showers every day and keep sleep away until nearly midnight.
A new snack is being peddled on the streets of istanbul.  Those gas grills for roasting hazelnuts in the winter have been refitted to boil pots of water for corn on the cob!  I haven't seen anyone standing around eating it yet, but maybe it's a quick lunch for people on the go.  Besides the large number of flags for sale on May 19th it's just been the usual men sitting next to open suitcases filled with wallets and belts (all genuine Italian leather, honest) or popular novels, or now Galatasaray Champion 2006 flags.  Really, almost all shopping can be done on the street.  Now fruit and vegetable vendors have hand drawn carts, wooden bins displaying their produce and scales and weights ready to portion them out for you.  You can buy bus tickets, lighters, and individual cigarettes from a man sitting on the median.  Another hot item sold on the streets is a screwdriver that comes with changeable heads, only four lira, baby.
From the children, yes there are children vendors, the most common thing is packs of tissues, which are given more like how candy is given by salvation army Santas.  Give more than 50 kurush and you'll probably get some tissues.  You also might get an insult yelled at you if you don't give an amount befitting a westerner.  That boggles me.  Children also sell suras printed on a hearty card stock.  The first time I encountered this I thought he was just handing out fliers.  What a child might be handing out fliers for never crossed my mind, but the way eye contact was made fleetingly and a paper was pressed to my hand provoked my usual post rock concert reaction, pick it up and look at it.  Then I realized he was murmuring over and over, asking me please mister for some money.  Ack!  I had a fifty, but no change, I apologized and handed it back to him.  It's embarrassing, and probably didn't look very good, rejecting Islam and charity in one blow.  I walked for a week with a couple lira coins in my pocket hoping I'd see him again, but he's moved off these streets.