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Istanbul 2
Sep. 21st, 2007 06:02 pmSo, last time I wrote I was sitting over-awed in the hostel deciding that I didn't need a second enormous tiled mosque in the day; indeed I relaxed, walked a little round the end of the peninsula that sticks out into the Golden Horn, and went out for dinner with a couple of people from the hostel: a Londoner whose family comes from North Cyprus, who spent hours chatting in Turkish to the waiter without securing us very much money off, and a smooth Glaswegian. A lethal pudding ('hot halva'; a large dish of crushed sesame seeds mixed with a great deal of syrup and raised to crusting incandesence in the oven), which secured me a night of truly weird dreams.
Overnight the weather broke, and today's been a reasonable English late-summer day; overcast, warm but not hot, and occasional showers of an intensity to refresh rather than to soak. I went on the tram to the Dolmabahce palace, which is I suspect a splendid example of lending-with-intent-to-repossess-the-collateral on behalf of whoever financed it.
( fictional finance follows )
After that, across to the Galata tower which overlooks most of the European part of the city; coffee and a subtle cake the size of my upper arm made with chocolate sponge, chocolate cream, chocolate chips, pistachios, raspberries and raspberry syrup in a rooftop cafe three doors down from the Galata tower; the New Mosque (built 1562); a tomb of assorted Sultans; Constantine's Banded Pillar (closed for renovation) and back to the hostel.
I have taken something like 400 photos today, the Dolmabahce palace being extravagently photogenic if rather hard to photograph since it's illuminated by chandeliers so the dynamic range in any room is about a dozen stops (is there an easy Linux tool for taking a series of bracketed shots, with perhaps some slight camera motion between them, and aligning them and making a high-dynamic-range image?), and need to recharge the camera. Perhaps a less dangerous pudding would be wise tonight; tomorrow to Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace, and Sunday morning I need to be on the 0845 bus to the distant airport whence Easyjet should take me home.
Overnight the weather broke, and today's been a reasonable English late-summer day; overcast, warm but not hot, and occasional showers of an intensity to refresh rather than to soak. I went on the tram to the Dolmabahce palace, which is I suspect a splendid example of lending-with-intent-to-repossess-the-collateral on behalf of whoever financed it.
( fictional finance follows )
After that, across to the Galata tower which overlooks most of the European part of the city; coffee and a subtle cake the size of my upper arm made with chocolate sponge, chocolate cream, chocolate chips, pistachios, raspberries and raspberry syrup in a rooftop cafe three doors down from the Galata tower; the New Mosque (built 1562); a tomb of assorted Sultans; Constantine's Banded Pillar (closed for renovation) and back to the hostel.
I have taken something like 400 photos today, the Dolmabahce palace being extravagently photogenic if rather hard to photograph since it's illuminated by chandeliers so the dynamic range in any room is about a dozen stops (is there an easy Linux tool for taking a series of bracketed shots, with perhaps some slight camera motion between them, and aligning them and making a high-dynamic-range image?), and need to recharge the camera. Perhaps a less dangerous pudding would be wise tonight; tomorrow to Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace, and Sunday morning I need to be on the 0845 bus to the distant airport whence Easyjet should take me home.
