So Long Istanbul & Mail Art #116, 117 & 118

 Images from our days in Istanbul. One day, we opened the apartment door, and saw this cat eyeing us suspiciously.  There were cats everywhere in Istanbul. We would see food and water left out for them, and at times, see cats congregating in an area waiting to be fed perhaps.

 A dessert sampler plate at Saray on Istiklal Cad. We got only one, and then had to order a second as these were so delicous.

 This is Chuck inserting a token into the turnstile so that we could take the tram at Tophane.

This is the tram that we'd be riding on. They're so modern and easy to use. I am envious of localities with public transportation like this. Envious!

 This is the inside of the Sultanhamet mosque. The tiles are really amazing. One can't get a good closeup of them so postcards are the answer. We entered after prayers, though there were still some people praying. It's an active mosque and we heard the prayer to call earlier.

 Emin Percussion is a small shop with lots of drums, dumbeks, and what we in the U.S. would call tambourines, but are really hand drums, like riqs. The man sitting sideways, seen through the doorway, played them for us when we stopped in earlier in the day. He was so good and what a treat to hear live music in that little space. I wish I'd gotten a close up as the musician was playing but I was too enthralled by the music.

 Here is the typical tea in glasses. This cup was from when we were outside of Aya Sofia, with Katerina. We had many, many glasses to tea during out visit to Istanbul.

 Along the Bosphorus, as Julien was taking us up to the Black Sea. Asia is other other side and there's a big tanker in the water headed north.

 This is an old fort situation where the Bosphorus  meets the Black Sea. It was an amazing feeling standing there looking out at that body of water. In the near distance were ships waiting to enter the Bosphorus and on the other side, was the part of Europe that my father came from. I got a bit emotional thinking about that. Sorry this is blurry. Chuck took some really good one, which I may post later.

#116

#117

#1118

These are the last pieces of Mail Art related to Istanbul. I had to take them to France to me, since I had no time to get to the post office to buy stamps or mail these. The last one was on the way,  via Lufthansa to Munich, for our connection to Paris.

Istanbul,a map, and #114 & #115 mail art

the Bosphorus

 Night time view from the apartment. Across the Golden Horn, lots of lights, all quiet in "our" little neighborhood.

 This is the internet cafe that Sara and Peter recommended. It was nearby, on the ground floor, and not smoky. The name is pronounce like the word "hot." Clever use of the @ symbol, yes? The guy who watched over it was helpful as the keyboard was, of course, in TURKISH!! There were the two letters i and I, one with a dot and one without, which caused me some grief as my name and my passwords and the dotted one in it, and where the heck was that one located!? Also, it was tricky to find the @ symbol. However, I did manage to use the keyboard and got kind of good at it by the 3rd time we used it. Chuck stood over my shoulder pointing out my misplaced "i"s.

Here's mail art from two days, using bits from the Pera Museum brochure.
And the newspaper.

#114

#115

 Here's one of the big ferry boats like the one we took with Mustafa, to have lunch in Asia. We had tea on board.

 This was where we went for lunch. The Maiden's Tower. We got off the ferry in Asia, jumped into a cab, got out at a small boat landing, jumped on the boat (which arrived shortly) and went to the tower. It was amazing. It all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to think about how scary it was jumping onto the little boat, as the currents of the Bosphorus bumped it to and fro. Later, I thought about it and was happy that my clog didn't drop off on a leap.  Lunch was in a restaurant in the tower. What a cool experience.

A view from the big ferry on the Bosphorus.