Paris, encore, and Mail Art (#119, 120, 121)

#119

#120

 We arrived at the Charles de Gaulle airport and quickly got onto our shuttle, which promptly got caught in really thick traffic on the peripherique. It took hours to get into the city. 
I took out my copy of Cancer Ward (my book club book) and the woman next to me pointed to it and said "You like?" and when I launched into English, she said "No English." We had a minimal conversation in French.  She was from Moscow, a French language teacher.

#121

These are the first of the three cards that I made while in France.












This happy baker came from the wrapping paper from the baguette I purchased in the morning.

 Coffee at a little cafe we'd often passed by but never stopped at. It was suggested by our new friend in Istanbul (Ekin) that we go there and check out the bathroom. While the cafe looks old and typical, the bathroom is wildly modern, metal and dark, with little tiny lights. It's something to experience. The coffee was Frenchly good. This cafe is across the street from our favorite Eye Glass store (Anne and Valentin)

 This is the courtyard that our friends have made into a garden! Their place is on the left. Those are their kitchen windows straight ahead. They graciously gave us accommodations for our stay in Paris. Here's our friend's website where you can see his terrific sculptures.

 Walking to the Marais, we crossed over Beaumarchais (or Richard Lenoir, I can't remember) and I turned back and spotted this shop. Since I am sometimes called Mimy, this made me smile.

 We went for lunch at one of our favorite places, The Swedish Cultural Institute.
They have a nice little cafe, which offers a refillable cup of coffee, a rarity in Paris. On nice days, one can sit in the courtyard. They have two exhibition spaces and always have interesting art exhibits.

Spring flowers were everywhere in Paris. Tulips in abundance and since we'd just come from the land where tulips originally came from, we took special delight in seeing them.

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.

Istanbul adventure continues (#113 Mail Art)

#113

 Here's the mail art of the day, probably Tuesday, who remembers! This was the day we were meeting up with Katerina, Mustafa, and Kemal to have an adventure.

 Down at the bottom of this street (Postacilar Sok) who went into a shop/gallery/workshop of a jeweler named Acun. We didn't know that this shop was listed in some guide books, we happened on it randomly. We had an amazing experience of having tea, having our portraits sketched by the owner's friend who was hanging out there, and kind of having a conversation (not much English.)

 After meeting our friends, we'd hardly walked anywhere when we saw the Pera Museum, and they were having a Diego Rivera/Frida Kahlo exhibit. Wow! What an opportunity. We got to see work that we'd seen only in books.







We also saw work from their permanent collection and some really fine ceramics. How about these two mugs? I'd like them in my kitchen.

After the Pera Museum, Kemal led us down to the space that houses The Association of Cartoonists where we saw an exhibit of political cartoons (very good, very thought provoking, and amusing) and the winners of this contest. Work from around the world depicting this character, with me and Katerina.

This is the view from the restaurant at the top of the Hotel Richmond (of course we had to go there!) What a view. On this cloudy day, all of the buildings were like a painted backdrop.  The view was pretty spectacular, the setting very contemporary, the food was good, but the company was the best.

Mail Art for Passover, today #139 series.

 Happy Passover to those who observe it, Happy Easter to those who observe it, and happy spring for all of us.

Istanbul, and Mail Art #112

Tuesday, noonish

 This is a photo of three mail artists in Istanbul. How cool is this. Kemal, me, and Katerina.  We're sitting in the lobby of the Peak Hotel, shortly after this, we'll be met by Katerina's friend, Mustafa, and we'll be off on an adventure.

 The famous Pera Palas hotel tea room. This hotel was built by the Orient Express so that the passengers would have a European fancy hotel to stay in at the end of their trip. Agatha Christie stayed here and "her" room is available for a look, when it's not occupied.

Monday afternoon

 This was taken shortly after we met Katerina at her hotel around the corner and chatted for awhile. It was so amazing how we felt so comfortable, like meeting a long time friend, after a separation.

 Had to insert this, a pen shop drew our attention, of course. But we managed to control ourselves.

 Another of the stands. I spelled the name wrong in the previous post - simit not cimit. It's pronounced with the "s" sound. The "c" in Turkish is a "j" sound.

 Love the tram.

#112

Looking UP the street. Notice the cars. They are big cars, not tiny cars. They navigate the narrow streets and turns amazingly. The Istanbulis seem to favor big cars.

Istanbul, Monday

 How fun to see my named used on this tour bus!

 We had this for dinner one night. I added words to my vocabulary. Soup-çorbası (actually learned that the "ı" at the end makes the word 'soup of',) vegetables-sebze

 Our uphill trek lead us to İstiklal Cad. (street) the big commercial avenue. Lots of shops, lots of people, and the Nostalgic Tram running down the middle.

 There's one of the ubiquitous cimit stands. Those are the delicious round breads covered in sesame seeds. They are everywhere, like tea in glasses!

 We had lunch in a restaurant that Rick Steves recommended in his book. Otentika. Guess what that means? There were women in the front making that bread we ate. The food was very good and happily not a problem for me to get vegetarian dishes. The waiters spoke some English.

 We arrived in time for the 40 day Shopping Festival. No kidding. They were having a shopping festival.

 Very typical pottery, of which we got ourselves some tiny bowls.  

Here's that Nostagia Tram. Very cool to hear it's bell ring as it went back and forth. The crowds (which this view doesn't show) had to part to make way for it. We didn't ride it as it was always crowded. We walked the length of the street, many times.

On this very Monday, we walked to this end of the street, made a couple of turns and were in front of the Peak Hotel, where Katerina was staying. She's my Mail Art friend, that I've communicated with for at least a year. She managed to come to Istanbul to hang out with us and see friends (more on this later.)