Day Sixty-one: Pictures of Things and Stuff

There were some pictures of the city I took on my walk this weekend left over, so here they are!

the view as you walk out of our apartment building... this is the hill I've been talking about

our street from closer to Istiklal

covered street off of Istiklal

typical images of Istiklal Avenue, except usually there are more people

 the intersection of our street and Istiklal

 These are enormous Galatasaray banners, and this is by no means the only building decorated with them.

view of our building (the yellowish one in the middle) from up the hill on our street

And because I know you wanted to see more amateur photography, I also had some leftover pictures from walking around and visiting Dolmabahçe Palace about three weeks ago.  Here they are now!  (You can stop reading this anytime.  My feelings won't be hurt.  I won't even know.)

 A beloved Turkish tradition is the Incredibly Oversized Flag, and nowhere can a better example be found than here in Taksim Square.

 We were wandering around on a hot day and ducked into what looked like a run-down mosque only to discover that the interior was both stunningly beautiful and air-conditioned.  Win-win.

 Unlike "Probably the Best Cafe in Town" in Bucharest, this cafe knows there's no substitute for confidence.

 A windowshopping cat.  They have those here.

For a little background, Dolmabahçe was built in the 1800s, the last century of Ottoman rule.  The Ottomans were basically faced with a choice: either develop a competitive industrial economy or build a palace where everything's plated in gold and there's an even larger space for a harem than in the current palace.  They went with Option B, and although it might not have been the most forward-thinking choice they ever made (that wasn't really their thing) it certainly resulted in a heck of a palace.  Ataturk later used Dolmabahçe as his residence when he visited Istanbul, and he died in one of the bedrooms there.  There's a huge Turkish flag draped over the bed, the room has been left just as it was when he died (except the flag part, I assume), and they kept all of his medicine in the bathroom's medicine cabinet.  Anyway, I can see why he liked the place.

 Right?