Picture catch-up

Well, here I am, sick for the third time since we came back from the States. Just a cruddy cold this time, but jeez, I'd sure like to enjoy some unhampered vitality for more than a few days in a row! (Best to get it out of the way before school starts up again next week, I guess.)

Anyway, to cheer myself (and now you) up, here are a few pictures I had taken with my cell phone and only just recently downloaded onto the computer. (They're not as high-resolution as the ones we take with our digital camera, so any blurriness is not the fault of your computer.) First off, here's a couple of pictures I took off the vapur one day on the way to work last December:



This here is Haydarpasa Station, built in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire as one terminus of the Istanbul-Baghdad railway. It's kind of nice in a grand ancien-régime sort of way. Note the little black choo-choo still parked out front (slightly left of center).



And this is a mosque we pass right before arriving at Kadiköy, where I catch the bus to the university. This mosque gives me a chuckle for its silly disproportionate minarets, from which an out-of-tune call to prayer was sounding as I took this shot.

Now here's a couple from the trip Meltem and I took to the Covered Bazaar:



This is an attempt to capture some of the riches to be found in the innermost part of the bazaar. Lots of cool stuff ranging from necklaces to sextants.



...and old Iraqi medals with Saddam Hussein's picture on them. In fact, I took this the day he did his little dance at the end of a rope, which gave both myself and this shop's proprietor a laugh.

I also caught Meltem shopping for a belly-dancing outfit:



(DISCLAIMER: Meltem was not in fact shopping for a belly-dancing outfit!)

Some weeks later, we had a very nice visit with Elvin and her parents. Here's a picture I took by sticking out my arm and pointing the cell phone at ourselves – a powerful tool in the hands of a master photographer, but with me... well, you be the judge.



Usually Elvin eats by herself, safely ensconced in her own little throne:



... but often her cuteness is such that she simply must come join us, even if it presents a slight inconvenience to her "host" at table.



Elvin, by the way, is learning to talk at a good clip. She calls Meltem "Me-ne," and I think I was once referred to as "Be-be" (she talks to me less, as, let's face it, Meltem is much cooler and more interesting). In fact Sehnaz (Elvin's mom) has an ingenious plan in mind wherein Elvin spends several hours with us each weekend and we speak English to her. The key to language learning: Get 'em while their minds are pliable!

OK, I need to go take a pill or something (hack, cough). More later!