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.

Printemps Department store

Last night, C wanted to go to the Grand Magasins (big department stores) to see the Christmas windows, but I my foot hurt, after the walk to and from the Paris Mosquee, and it was cold out, so we stayed in...actually went to a birthday party upstairs, some Tunisian artists. We had no news at all until just now when I read two e-mails from the states, and a link to CNN. Wow! With no TV or radio, and not checking the news on-line, I'm SO out of the loop. I've now bookmarked the BBC on-line. Here's a photo from a news source. All the young police officers with Printemps in the background. You can see how grand this store is just by looking at the building. We'll go there maybe tomorrow night, to see the windows. Pictures of them will appear eventually.

The Musselman Institute & Tea House

Today, Agnese took us to the Musselman Institute, which is connected to the Paris Mosque. It was a fairly short walk over to it, but with the chilly weather it seemed to take longer. We went into the building and found ourselves outside in a beautiful courtyard, and then we passed through a corridor into another courtyard. It was beautiful with lots of tile work on the walls and the floor of the small courtyard. It must be really amazing in warmer weather as there are fountains and pools of water. As you enter the tea house, you see a case of mouth watering (okay, I had to make that cliche because it's true) pastries. We went from there into indoor seating area. Lots of copper tray tables, a waiter bringing glasses of tea to everyone. Chuck went out and chose and assortment of pastries for us. There were little birds in the room that came down to the tables to clear up the crumbs. Oh, yes, I discovered why I was extremely cold walking over. I'd forgotten to add my wool layer of clothing, I'd left the sweater lying on the bed. Brrrrr!