Bayrama mama; or, bread cheese and cherries for days.

There is a feeling, at least for me, unique to traveling. At times, surprisingly liberating--a cacophony of foreign tongue surrounding you in a courtyard, and no need to process, respond to, or even comprehend any of it. Language broken down to appealing sounds and ear-catching bits. More often than not, I try to open my ears to all of it at once but, somehow, have yet to exhaust myself.





However, everything has an afterthought. More now than ever, I find myself with constant narration. My mind whirring with stimulus; all of it inherently good, intrinsically productive--at times, though, there is a...density to is all that can leaden one's steps.













Kadikoy Mussel Seller-
a man,
lighting his cigarette
his only concern his
his concern only his
pyramid of clicking black

the middle of a cobblestone street
amidst
the
jangling pockets
of drunken home-stumblers










...but most of all I am learning to love relaxing into the view.

Laundry, continued.

As far I can tell, there are no dryers in Turkey, and as a result, today I hung my first anything out to dry. Mom, I thought you would get a kick out of this.
Everything was going fine until it started to rain. But no worries, a little improvisation fixed that.















Everything survived the hurried move, except for a lone sock. No matter, just a reason to make friends with my downstairs neighbor.

Tonight we will head to a little tucked away nargile (hookah) bar that these Turkish guys showed us to watch the Fenerbache futbol match. Maybe I will have some more pictures. Maybe I will figure out how to use my new camera. Maybe I'll have something a bit more interesting to say.

Miss you all.

Dirty Laundry

after a week and ahalf abroad, here it is: The Travel Blog. I haven't been anywhere near blogspot since highschool, but I hope to make a habit of dumping thoughts, pictures and moleskine scribblings here while I'm abroad. Check back regularly and maybe it will get interesting.

I think it's actually fitting that I start this now, I'd rather the first few days of logisitical frustrations, heat, and one or two especially awkward people be mere anecdotes than full blown journal entries. For now, I have moved on past all that and settled into my wonderful flat (read: wonderful after the two motherly, Turkish cleaning ladies had their way with the place. I really wish I had a picture of them.) and feel much more comfortable with my surroundings in this beautiful and beguiling city.

I do however, have some photos of the flat:


Here we have various views from various windows (my balcony is cool but man, oh man, if I had that one across the street...), the kitchen, and my roomate. His name Guillaume, his interests include reading, and being French.