The Empire Strikes Back

The other day as I walked home I was enlisted by three young boys to pick berries from a tree that hangs over the stairs near my flat. Because of my hight I could pull the branches to where they perched on a cinderblock wall. They picked the plump ripe berries, eating some and putting others in a grocery bag. The fruit they called 'tut', the Persian word for mulberry. They looked like mulberries, except instead of being crimson like those I remember in America, they were white, large, and squishy, like maggots. Now, I've noticed many plants and their fruits looking different here, (heck, here sumac is a spice and not a poisonous weed) but I'm still hesitant to eat that, especially when it's growing out of the city streets. But hey, maybe next time.
A new mall opened in Levent last week, the good Apple people have opened a store there and told me to come visit. This mall is something else, it feels like a canyon (it's called 'Kanyon' actually), the center is open to the sky and it snakes around a bit with four levels. I should take some pictures, its architecture reminds me of something see in San Francisco, much more appealing than Cevahir. Most of the stores were specialty boutiques with only a very few items, like handbags, or shoes, or t-shirts. Like the Ottoman Empire, a t-shirt company that makes some really fun designs. I don't see myself paying sixty for a t-shirt, but there was this one shirt featuring the silhouette a mounted rider about to throw a spear, it read "The Empire Strikes Back." Maybe...