Photos from Turkey
Jun. 28th, 2011 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerTime for a miniature picspam! I meant to upload my photos only at the end of the trip, but I ran out of camera space and, well. Something had to be done. So: beautiful photos to share!
Long ago, the sultan had a little daughter who was terribly afraid of snakes; so her father built her a palace in the Bosphorus, where the snakes couldn't reach her, and there it stands to this day. (Or at least, this is the story I heard. Doesn't it sound like the start of a fairy tale?)
I have no story for this one; it's an old fort beneath the new bridge that spans the Bosphorus. But such a dramatic shot! I took this from the deck of our evening cruise through the Bosphorus.
This is a cat, sleeping on an empty roast-corn cart. It's field corn they roast, not sweet corn, so goodness only knows how they stand it. I guess it's a matter of growing up with it.
These sleek, thin cats (and occasional stray dogs, but mostly cats) crop up all over Turkey: breezing pleadingly through the terraces on restaurants (Turkish restaurants have a lovely tendency to have tables outside, on the grass), sleeping on stacks of pillows in the bazaars, leaping out of dumpsters when the trash is thrown in. Their omnipresence is one of the few really visible signs that Turkey is still comparatively poor.
Look close at this man's hands. He's actually making a lollipop, whipping bands of thick colored sugar syrup around a stick until they build up big and bright and sweet. He was SO FAST! Two-three seconds at each color, and the lollipop is done.
Turkey has wonderful sweets. Tonight I tried chocolate-dipped pişmaniye (the ş is pronounced sh), which is like cotton candy - or powdered marshmallows; it's hard to describe, not really like anything else, but delicious.
I feel constrained to add that this mode of dress is confined to tourist districts, and rare even there. The average Turkish man wears khakis or jeans and button-downs. A reasonable percentage of Turkish women still wear quote-unquote "exotic" clothes, headscarves and long skirts, but the men's clothes don't generally lend themselves to being local color.
Long ago, the sultan had a little daughter who was terribly afraid of snakes; so her father built her a palace in the Bosphorus, where the snakes couldn't reach her, and there it stands to this day. (Or at least, this is the story I heard. Doesn't it sound like the start of a fairy tale?)
I have no story for this one; it's an old fort beneath the new bridge that spans the Bosphorus. But such a dramatic shot! I took this from the deck of our evening cruise through the Bosphorus.
This is a cat, sleeping on an empty roast-corn cart. It's field corn they roast, not sweet corn, so goodness only knows how they stand it. I guess it's a matter of growing up with it.
These sleek, thin cats (and occasional stray dogs, but mostly cats) crop up all over Turkey: breezing pleadingly through the terraces on restaurants (Turkish restaurants have a lovely tendency to have tables outside, on the grass), sleeping on stacks of pillows in the bazaars, leaping out of dumpsters when the trash is thrown in. Their omnipresence is one of the few really visible signs that Turkey is still comparatively poor.
Look close at this man's hands. He's actually making a lollipop, whipping bands of thick colored sugar syrup around a stick until they build up big and bright and sweet. He was SO FAST! Two-three seconds at each color, and the lollipop is done.
Turkey has wonderful sweets. Tonight I tried chocolate-dipped pişmaniye (the ş is pronounced sh), which is like cotton candy - or powdered marshmallows; it's hard to describe, not really like anything else, but delicious.
I feel constrained to add that this mode of dress is confined to tourist districts, and rare even there. The average Turkish man wears khakis or jeans and button-downs. A reasonable percentage of Turkish women still wear quote-unquote "exotic" clothes, headscarves and long skirts, but the men's clothes don't generally lend themselves to being local color.
