Thanks for the warm welcome everyone

I've noticed each and every barber in Istanbul has a straight razor and I'm sure I could learn a lot about technique from them, friendly as they are I'm sure they would gladly help. However they all use shavettes, I've never seen one use a fixed blade (I've been living in Turkey for close to five years now) Therefore I don't think they could help me out much with the stropping and especially honing of the blade.

I took my straight razor to a barber the other day and his eyes grew big when he saw it, he had never used one like this and even the owner (around 60 years old I guess) said it was an antique artform. He recommended I go to a blade salesman to get it sharpened. When I got there he showed me how to hone it on my stone, leading with the spine(!) I quickly said I got the idea and left