More pre-dated notes
Nov. 3rd, 2010 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roadrunnertwiceAnd the word is, NO JET LAG. Fuck yeah, I am a dynamo of awakeness. That's pretty much all there is to say about that. (Well, there's more, but I'm going to leave it until I have time to write about stuff that isn't exciting foreign locales.)
I'm in Istanbul on the morning of my third day here, writing this in our hotel apartment while Kate types some emails. I'm having to re-think a bit how I interact with a new city, simply because I haven't traveled in so long, but so far I think I'm absorbing an okay amount of it. We've gone to the Ayasofia, walked around the old town, sat in cafés, eaten some amazing food, seen the insides of two incredibly old and cool mosques (including the "new" mosque, which, well, that name writes its own punchline in this town, doesn't it), not-shopped at the grand bazaar and the spice market (both tourist central) as well as the pet market and the highway underpasses and really pretty much anyplace where there's enough free space on the ground to set a cigar box. (The entrepreneurial spirit, she is alive and well in Istanbul.)
I've NOT been interacting much with the Turks, which I do feel somewhat guilty about; this is also the first time I've traveled with a guide (of sorts), and I'm leaning on her, possibly too much. Still, I'm here for less than two weeks, so I'm not going to get over-ambitious re: cultural exchange.
At any rate, we've been spending a lot of time wandering the streets, dodging scooters laden with water tanks and dancing around and between families and couples and clusters of bros. The streets are crowded here, it's kind of unbelievable. I think even more so than the chain of big European cities I rushed through back in '04, though it's tough to compare across so much passed time.
More soon.
I'm in Istanbul on the morning of my third day here, writing this in our hotel apartment while Kate types some emails. I'm having to re-think a bit how I interact with a new city, simply because I haven't traveled in so long, but so far I think I'm absorbing an okay amount of it. We've gone to the Ayasofia, walked around the old town, sat in cafés, eaten some amazing food, seen the insides of two incredibly old and cool mosques (including the "new" mosque, which, well, that name writes its own punchline in this town, doesn't it), not-shopped at the grand bazaar and the spice market (both tourist central) as well as the pet market and the highway underpasses and really pretty much anyplace where there's enough free space on the ground to set a cigar box. (The entrepreneurial spirit, she is alive and well in Istanbul.)
I've NOT been interacting much with the Turks, which I do feel somewhat guilty about; this is also the first time I've traveled with a guide (of sorts), and I'm leaning on her, possibly too much. Still, I'm here for less than two weeks, so I'm not going to get over-ambitious re: cultural exchange.
At any rate, we've been spending a lot of time wandering the streets, dodging scooters laden with water tanks and dancing around and between families and couples and clusters of bros. The streets are crowded here, it's kind of unbelievable. I think even more so than the chain of big European cities I rushed through back in '04, though it's tough to compare across so much passed time.
More soon.