looking down

Yesterday I had brunch with Aurel and Molly in beautiful Yıldız Park. It was a gorgeously blue-skied day— the first coatless day of the year. I have a lot of delightful duck feeding memories of Yıldız Park, and I believe the last time I walked its paths I was nine, and a butterfly landed on my hand.
These beetles used to frighten me as a little girl— I'm not sure why. Aurel pointed out that they look like African masks.
So much of our childhood is spent looking downward in the grass.

your call is important to us

This is what happens when I get put on hold.

volcanic interruptions

Well my friends, sadly that massive cloud of volcanic ash has blown itself right into my travel plans. I am grumpily sitting on my sofa with a cup of tea and a very, very nice and Expedia agent on the phone. Hopefully I can get to Barcelona in May— Granada and the Alhambra will have to wait until another time, which is fine. Maybe I can even swing a ferry to Africa into that trip— how marvellous would that be?
So as I'm about to embark upon a marathon of Kieslowski's Decalogue and draw some hearts, I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took with my 35mm Exakta 500. Unfortunately, most of the roll was ruined, as there seems to be a problem with the shutter. It's too bad, because I had taken all these marvellous pictures at a fish market. Hopefully it's fixable.

eyjafjallajoekull

I'm starting to get concerned that this volcano might interfere with my travel plans. If you don't see a grumpy post here tomorrow, then it's safe to assume that I am in Spain with a big happy grin on my face.

Fingers crossed!

from carrot cake to kokoreç

I found a new little café in Cihangir to hang out in, but as I was off in dreamland, I didn't get the name. Right down the street from Hanımeli on Ağahamam Caddesi, I treated myself to a scrumptious lemony carrot walnut cake and a perfect Americano. I often feel like I have no time to read anymore, and have discovered that the time magically appears when I find myself in a cosy café with a book. This will have to be my new haunt.

I'm going to take this post in a new direction. Now, I pride myself on trying just about anything when it comes to food. I haven't come across anything I don't like— except cantaloupe and kidneys. I have been known to enjoy a lengua taco on occasion— that's a beef tongue taco, or some tripe soup, and I'm mad for sea urchins and monkfish liver. For some reason for the past year I've been resisting the urge to try a very popular and beloved Turkish dish, kokoreç.


What exactly is kokoreç? Pronounced "ko-ko-retch," it certainly doesn't sound very appealing— and the ingredients don't offer much to get uh, excited about either. Lamb kidneys, lungs, hearts, sweetbreads and intestines are all wrapped up in seasoned offal into a long tubular shape, and grilled on a spit. Sweetbreads are deceptive in name— there's nothing sweet or bready about the thymus and pancreas, and offal sounds well, awful— it's the entrails and leftover bits of an animal. So why would I want to eat this? Because it looks so good when the sandwich guy chops it all up with peppers and oregano on a griddle, and every Turk I have asked about it gets this far-off Homer Simpson-y look of craving in their eyes and drools, "Oooooooh... kokoreç!"

I had no idea when I woke up this morning, that today would be the day. Tia and Gyl were back in town, and they, braver than I, had already tried it and joined the kokoreç appreciation club. Feeling a bit silly for having lived here for over a year and never tasted it, I figured it was about time. We found a little stand boasting the dish that the EU wanted to ban out of fear of mad cow disease, and ordered three sandwiches.


So what was it like? A little chewy in parts, spicy, soft and flavourful— pretty good. There were definitely some bites that tasted more like organ meat than others, and there was the occasional kidney-flavour that I wasn't too keen on, but overall, not bad. I would have it again, and I suspect it goes nicely with beer or ayran, but I have to say it was the carrot cake that I'll remember fondly.

in bloom

It's that magical time of year again, when Istanbul bursts into vibrant colour. The 5th annual International Tulip Festival is upon us! Let it be known that the tulip is Turkish, brought to the Netherlands by Dutch traders— so when you see a tulip, think Turkey. Swing by Emirgan Park to have your eyes dazzled— the festival ends this Sunday.

35mm and the barcelona countdown

In four days I'll be able to cross Barcelona off my list of places I have dreamed of going to. I really can't believe that I'm finally going to walk streets I have imagined walking for so long— in my former life as a designer at a San Francisco ad agency, I would often spend a few spare minutes in my exhausting schedule to check out the ticket fares to Barcelona. The three same issues would constantly pop up as I watched the pages load: money, time and distance. San Francisco feels like the beautiful end of the earth— everything is just so far away. The time and money I needed to spend to get anywhere, was enough to make me quickly close the browser window. I was only given ten working days of vacation a year, and constantly wondered if I should I use it all at once on a big far away trip or spread it out for sanity's sake. I often worked six days a week, anywhere from 40 to 66 hours. There was little time to do anything but work, and my art suffered as a result— but I loved my job. I found a certain sense of exhilaration, meeting seemingly impossible deadlines and pleasing even more impossible art directors.

When I suddenly realised that the city I had been living in for three years was as foreign to me as a city I had never been to, it finally dawned on me that I needed a different life. The nomad inside me had run off somewhere, and my apartment was full of all these half-started paintings and drawings. I wasn't sure if I was working to live or living to work. Then came what was for me, a blessing in disguise. Like thousands of people around the world, I lost my job. The initial sense of dread and devastation started to fade as I began to finally explore San Francisco. After sending out my daily batch of resumés, I would head out the door in a different direction and start walking. As my sense of adventure returned with each new step, the nomad came back.

Two years later, and I'm living half-way across the world in one its most fascinating and beautiful cities, working on my art. I've managed to cross Prague and Budapest off my list, and this weekend, Barcelona and Granada are next. The cherry on top of this little story is that yesterday, I found out I've been accepted into a postgraduate programme in education, so I can become an international art teacher. I can't think of a more rewarding and important job in the world than that of a teacher. I never imagined my life would take me here, but I am happy it has.

To celebrate the beginning of the beginning of my new life, I'm going to take my grandad's 35mm Exakta 500 out on the town. This beautiful clunky old camera hasn't snapped a picture in decades, and I love that "Made in Germany (East)" is etched the bottom. What a lovely bit of history I get to hold in my hands today— to think this camera was made before the wall fell, and now its shutter will be opening to an ancient city in the year 2010.

köy

Köy is the Turkish word for village.

aya sofya

I remember standing beneath the centre of the magnificent dome of the Aya Sofya as a child, and realising for the first time, that the world and its history was far greater than anything my little mind could fathom. I felt terribly small and insignificant, smaller than the smallest sweeping ʾalif in gold on its great green disc.

The Aya Sofya, or Hagia Sophia, is enormous. Gigantic. Overwhelming. Built between 532 and 537 CE by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, the Aya Sofya would be the world's largest cathedral for the next thousand years. The height of the domed ceiling is exaggerated by the flight of pigeons and sparrows that have wandered inside, and the chains that hold the low-hanging, heavy chandeliers seem to disappear in the distance.


When Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the great church was transformed into a mosque. Mosaics were plastered over, Arabic calligraphy flowed in, and minarets, minber and mihrab were added. The architecture of the Aya Sofya (now a museum) is so distinctive with its massive dome that seems to float above its square base, that I'm surprised I never made the connection between it and the majority of Istanbul's other mosques. I was recently told that the Sultan was so impressed by the Aya Sofya, both structurally and aesthetically, that he had the city's future mosques based on the former church. How this escaped me, I will never know, because when I look at the Blue Mosque, Yeni Camii or Rüstem Paşa Camii, the similarities are as plain as day.

As a chaperone on a school field trip, I only managed the one quick sketch and few photos in this post— I need to go back. I have been to the Aya Sofya dozens of times in my life. I feel I know it intimately like an old friend and yet, I've never lost that feeling of experiencing its majesty for the first time. Twenty-four years later, I still feel unbearably and wonderfully small when I look up at that scalloped golden dome. Though the sun has risen and set nearly nine thousand times since I first stepped foot on the marble floor, smoothed by countless feet throughout history, the light inside feels magically unchanged.

The Aya Sofya Museum is open every day except Monday, from 9:30 to 16:30.
Entrance fee is 20 Turkish Lira.

waking up

7:42 am

7:43 am
7:46 am

wandering around cankurtaran

sunday, yummy sunday

Quel day! Behold the beauty of a meze at Giritli:


Buttery aubergines, creamy tarama, sweet peppers, succulent white beans, a zesty Turkish ceviche— followed by crispy kalamari, warm and subtle börek, and the softest, most beautiful grilled octopus. My mind was scrambled; I found it hard to think— the colours, the scents, the flavours.
Heaven on the tines of my fork.


Dessert— a warm and gooey helva, accompanied by little yummy fried pastry things that disappeared in a matter of moments.

I am truly at a loss for words; the food was exquisite, to say the least. I cannot begin to explain how to find Giritli— it's in Cankurturan, a place I had never been to before, somewhere behind Sultanahmet. I apologise for the brevity of this post, but I feel that whatever I write won't measure up— so please, feel free to drool over the photos!

Giritli Restoran
Keresteci Hakkı Sokak (Armada Otel Yanı) Cankurtaran / Ahırkapı / İSTANBUL
0 212 458 22 70

great white wings

There is so much I could say about the sight of these two storks balanced in their enormous, improbable nest atop that pole— but I feel that every word fails to accurately describe the feeling I felt inside me. Everyone should look into the eye of a stork in their lifetime.

the art of public transport

Ah, the metro. One of the best places to draw people. I was happy to discover that you no longer need to switch trains when going from Taksim to Atatürk Oto Sanayı— it's all a straight shot now, which serves me well. It's much quicker, and being able to stay on the same train gives me more drawing time in the same spot.

city of culture

Our fair city of Istanbul just so happens to be the 2010 European Capital of Culture. Each year, the European Union designates one city as its cultural capital, promoting the arts and aiding in the preservation of the city's cultural heritage. So what does this mean for you and me? I'm still not quite sure, but I have noticed some exhibitions going on— some of them are really cool.
Here are some closeups of pieces that I particularly admired:

Czech artist Lubos Plny, at the Institut Français d'Istanbul on Istiklal Caddesi.
Swiss artists Alex and Felix, at CDA Projects, Mısr Apartmanı on Istiklal Caddesi.

Turkish artist Gülin Hayat Topdemir, at Casa Dell'Arte, Mısr Apartmanı on Istiklal Caddesi.

I love seeing the work of other artists— it's inspiring to know what's out there.
I wish I had discovered these galleries earlier, so I could have shared them with you. I'm especially taken by Lubos Plny's work— the detail, lines and colours make me weak in the knees! Plus, I'm really into anatomical drawings, and I love his blending and layering of anatomy and schematic-style drawing. Hurry up and catch these shows before they end next week!