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.)

Mail Art #111 and exploring Istanbul

 This is my second card in Istanbul. Beside from Turkish scraps, I used the skull from a Tate Modern brochure. It fit so well.

 This surprised us as we walked DOWN the steep hill. The minarets appeared over the hill. We knew we weren't in Richmond, VA for sure.

 A bit further on DOWN the hill, we saw this ruin and the contemporary building behind it. It's so very much Istanbul, the very old, the old, and the contemporary. What an amazingly interesting city.

 After exploring a bit down below, we used a map we'd picked up (at Cuppa, the breakfast place, more on that later) to look for galleries. However, it was Monday and they were closed, as was the Istanbul Modern. As we walked UP hill towards the big commercial street (Istaklil) I saw these hanging pieces and looked in the window and there was an artist's studio. Wow, it looked like MY studio, meaning lots of materials and tools. It wasn't open. I would have loved to chat with the artist about what she did.

Notice how steep the hill. Here is the view looking back down the street. Can you tell how steep it is?

 Here we are walking UP further. There were some steps at this part, which I gladly used.

Looking back down the hill. Way off there in the distance is the area across the Golden Horn.

This walk was on Monday, our first day. We were getting the "lay" of the land and it was all UPhill and DOWNhill from what we could tell, at least in "our" neighborhood, Beyoglu.

Here are the Turkish words I knew when I arrived: merhaba-hello, lütfen-please, teşeküler-thanks

Istanbul, day 1 and mail art #110

 This is the first mail art that I made in Istanbul.  You can see that I was able to glean materials right away that set this in place, Istanbul, Turkish language, all there.

 My mail art making stuff! Since we were in an apartment, I was able to set out my tools and my gleaned materials.

 We had the use of a wonderful apartment, given to us by N & J's friends, who live in London, and whom we got to spend a couple nights with while there. The apartment was up high, so there was a view of a slice of the Bosphorus and the other side of the Golden Horn.

 Here's the stair case we had to go up and down, six flights. We were very proud of ourselves, we did it twice a day. Okay, so we had to stop a couple times and let out hearts calm down and our breathing become regular, but it wasn't too bad.

 The view looking down the street, down, as in down hill. See the bit of red canopy on the left there? That's a grocery store and just beyond it are steps going down DOWN leading to a street and goes DOWN and when you get to the bottom, you're nearly to the Istanbul Modern Museum of Art. After that, you have walk UP, that is until you figure out how to take the funicular up, which one does, rather quickly.

 View from the bathroom window.  You can see a sliver of the water, and the minarets behind the chimneys on the left.

View from the dining room window. In the distance, is the other side of the body of water known as The Golden Horn. More on bodies of water later.

We still can't believe we were in Istanbul. Amazing.