Made in Turkey

We were in Eminonu on Saturday, and I saw this neon sign for the first time:

The US presidential election!

Even though I gave it an exclamation point, the election -- as seen from Turkey -- probably deserves no more than a period. Mostly because it happened in the middle of the night here. We get CNN International in our cable package, so I made a valiant attempt to stay up all night to watch the election returns. I napped in preparation from 11pm to 2am, but then I fell asleep again at 4am, only to wake up at 7am, right as CNN was declaring Obama the winner. Yesterday, I was completely and utterly exhausted. (How did I ever manage to stay up all night as a teenager and feel great the next day?)

On a related note, there's a bakery in Istanbul that makes "Obama" cookies. According to my friend who brought them into work one day, the owner named them Obama cookies because the president was in town a couple of years ago when he came up with them, or something like that. And, err, because of the cookie's colors, I suppose. (Hey, I didn't name them.) The inside of the cookie is chesnut, and I imagine you can still find them at Poğaçacı bakery in Hisarüstü, if you were so inclined.