Brief update

Basic thing: walked around Istanbul. Walked around Istanbul more. Saw many children, rose bushes, water sellers. Spontaneously went to the Black Sea with Marlene, one of my travelling companions and the one who I am staying with in Istanbul (just completed Masters' in History, thesis on 18th-c. Ottoman architecture). We had to put luggage on a bus for Julıa, the other Istanbul-dweller among said travel companions (all of whom are German by birth) to send it to the rustıc hotel / resort where the conference on Urban geography (INURA) that she was organizing is takıng place (it had somehow been forgotten in Istanbul). After adventures with a psychopathic over-masculine taxi driver, we missed the first bus and had to wait an hour watchıng the sun sink over the Bosphorus. Then the next bus came and we got on it.

Conference: somewhat interesting. Two comments: people wıth progressive politics need to get a new aesthetic, one that doesn't involve singing 1960s and 70s songs that no one knows the lyrics to. Alternately, Anglo-American culture has to die. Seriously. They wrıte poetry on posters in Egyptian protests. And: although I have used the statement as my blog title, it's a little ridiculous.

Good food, beautıful rıver wıth people fishing in it. Friendly dog barking outside the tent for a while at about 5am. The call to prayer sounds nicest with some open space to reverberate in (although in the city you do get some neat acoustic effects bouncing off the walls).

Comments on Istanbul, and maybe even pictures, wıll follow in a couple days, when we'll have Internet at home.