Phillip and Rebecca Mefford

mouth-watering The northern coast of Turkey lies on the Black Sea. This beautiful and spacious region is known for lush green landscapes, tea-plant terraces, people of unique ethnic backgrounds, religious devotion, and maybe most of all for a little tiny fish known as hamsi . Hamsi is a sort of mix between sardines and anchovies, and lives only in the Black Sea. Food from this region is infused with hamsi . Hamsi over rice, fried hamsi , baked hamsi , hamsi tossed into corn bread. Not only are we starting to sound like Bubba and his shrimp, but our stomachs just turned at that last one. Here’s Phillip’s hamsi corn bread story, in case you haven’t heard it before: Turkish food is wonderful. In about eight years of being here I've only eaten a couple of things I didn't like....One day about six years ago a friend of mine from the Black Sea coast excitedly invited me over for lunch because his mother was making their traditional hamsi corn bread dish. I love tryin

Make sure to treat yourself to a coffee after wrestling with bureaucracy. An important element you must be emotionally prepared for, when transplanting yourself to a new land, is what our family calls “fun family outings.” These are the trips to consulates and other various government offices necessary to get permission to live and work in Turkey. Imagine waiting at the DMV, but in a language you don’t quite understand, and the necessity of coming back multiple times within the same week to said foreign-DMV-like-place because 1) you did not bring the proper documents necessary and/or 2) the system changed and you were not informed of it. The good news, you start with the red-tape in your own country, giving you time and practice to psyche yourself up for the foreign bureaucracy you will inevitably encounter after moving. In your self-given pep-talk, the key is remembering that it is a privilege, not your right, to live here. A little wild-goose-chase of documents and governmen