Once again I have to recommend Nate's blog, this time for its coverage of our last visit to Grinnell as semi-residents. The Mac SE was indeed the prize of prizes for the weekend, even if some people don't appreciate it (the following is of course a re-creation):
Tim. ...plus I brought home... the SE!
Sara. Where are you going to put it?
Tim. I don't know--it doesn't really fit at my desk. Maybe I'll put it out in the living room.
Sara. Maybe you should ask Teddy before putting an ugly box in the living room.
Tim. Ugly???
Sara. Whoa. Sorry. Do you really think it's attractive?
Tim. Uh, I guess I hadn't really thought about it.
Sara. Well...
Tim. I mean, yes, I think it's very beautiful.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
From Boston, I went straight to Turkey for two weeks. This was certainly the most unique part of my vacation: Turkey is an amazing place, filled with ancient marvels as well as (obviously) a thriving modern culture. It was especially fun to be there with Claire, who is now essentially fluent in Turkish, though she won't admit it: it made more direct contact with the country possible as well as increased our confidence! We did so much that it would be silly to try to relate everything and show every picture; rather, I'll just go over the highlights.
I met Mom in Dublin on my stopover there, and met Claire in Istanbul. From our first day, here are some views of Istanbul taken from Istanbul's Galata Tower. The first, especially, bears a distinct resemblance to the previous post's view of Boston from the Bunker Hill Monument. The water coming in from the right is the Golden Horn, which leads into the Bosporus:
The second is slightly more to the right along to Golden Horn. The minarets jutting up are, left to right, the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and I'm not sure (the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent?).
Here's a picture of a stall in Istanbul's touristy but amazing spice market:
We took the night train to Ankara, where we met up with Claire's host sisters before climbing up to the old castle area, not really maintained anymore except by its inhabitants, the most visible of whom are now shopkeepers and craftsellers. We climbed past them to the top, where we had a view of this massive city which extends in all directions yet has virtually no natural water source:
We finished the day with a delicious meal at Claire's host family's house. You'll note the watermelon: apparently Turkey grows most of its own fruit, so people eat the things that are in season. Watermelon was in season while we were there, and we had it for at least one meal, and often two, every day.
After a quick trip to Konya, long-time home of Mevlana (generally known here as Rumi) and his dervishes, we were based in the coastal resort town of Antalya for several hot days. Much of our travel around there was to visit ancient Greek and Roman ruins.
On day 1, we visited Termesos with a smelly taxi driver. It's located in a beautiful national forest:
...and has, among many other ruins, an impressive theater in a jaw-dropping location surrounded by mountains. I would love to see a production there...
On Day 2, having reunited with Dad, we visited Aspendos, Perge, and a beautiful waterfall. All three were hard to truly capture with a camera, since much of the magic lay in roaming around extensive ruined cities, enjoying the freedom allowed at these sites (in contrast to anything historically valuable in the US or most of Europe), and gaining a better understanding of and appreciation for ancient life. Nevertheless, I took several photos, stitched together into a panorama, that give some idea of Aspendos. It holds the best-preserved ancient theater in Turkey (it seats 15,000), but more fun for me was wandering the trails behind the theater to other parts of the ancient city. We didn't meet a single other person on the trails until we were essentially back at the theater.
We also spent a day in Olympos, kind of a hippie town. Claire and I spent the night in one of the town's trademark "treehouses" (while Mom and Dad slept in a bungalo with AC):
From there we made it to the Chimera, a place on a mountain where escaping gas is permanently alight in many places...
...and of course to Olympos' main draw, a beautiful beach surrounded by mountains and ruins.
Next on the itinerary was Kapadokya (cappadocia), an amazing place somewhat rreminiscent of the American southwest in that much of the landscape looks completely unearthly:
Completely unlike the American southwest, on the other hand (mesa dwellings being the obvious exception), is that 1. this area was pretty well populated for a long space of time and 2. those people found the ash-rock easy to escavate, so they built into, rather than on top of, the formations. In the picture above, for example, the holes in the rock lead (as many do) to small churches. In fact, even a short walk through this very large area will uncover tons of rock-cut dwellings and churches, too many, in fact, to even preserve or mark them all. (In the modern towns, in addition, these formations and their ancient excavations are integrated into people's shops, dwellings, and homes.) Many of the rock-cut churches were beautifully painted, but only the darkest churches' wall-paintings avoided light damage.
Here's a dramatic rock-cut castle:
and the ubiquitous "fairy chimneys," formed by the different erosion patterns of the volcanic ash rock below and the basalt above:
Kapadokya is one place I'd go back to in heartbeat, and so is the Hagia Sofia (back in Istanbul). Built in the 500s AD in just 5-6 years, it defies the imagination in its scope, art, and history (Byzantine church for 900 years, Ottoman mosque for 500 years, secular museum for close to 100 years: traces of all three stages remain). Again it's hard to capture such a place in photos, but I got a few, of an old (original?) ceiling mosaic:
A later, even more beautiful mosaic:
And a little piece of the inner main body, Mary and Jesus in the upper left, Gabriel to the right of them, the name "Allah" (right?) (oops, my blog is probably on the terrorist watch list now) in Arabic calligraphy on a giant medallion, and the Moslem version of a pulpit below that.
This was truly an amazing trip, and Claire, Mom, and Dad deserve my many thanks for making it possible.
If anyone's interested in a good rundown of my (and my family's) Ireland trip, I highly recommend Nate's coverage, which is excellent and which I don't intend to duplicate.
I met Mom in Dublin on my stopover there, and met Claire in Istanbul. From our first day, here are some views of Istanbul taken from Istanbul's Galata Tower. The first, especially, bears a distinct resemblance to the previous post's view of Boston from the Bunker Hill Monument. The water coming in from the right is the Golden Horn, which leads into the Bosporus:
The second is slightly more to the right along to Golden Horn. The minarets jutting up are, left to right, the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and I'm not sure (the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent?).
Here's a picture of a stall in Istanbul's touristy but amazing spice market:
We took the night train to Ankara, where we met up with Claire's host sisters before climbing up to the old castle area, not really maintained anymore except by its inhabitants, the most visible of whom are now shopkeepers and craftsellers. We climbed past them to the top, where we had a view of this massive city which extends in all directions yet has virtually no natural water source:
We finished the day with a delicious meal at Claire's host family's house. You'll note the watermelon: apparently Turkey grows most of its own fruit, so people eat the things that are in season. Watermelon was in season while we were there, and we had it for at least one meal, and often two, every day.
After a quick trip to Konya, long-time home of Mevlana (generally known here as Rumi) and his dervishes, we were based in the coastal resort town of Antalya for several hot days. Much of our travel around there was to visit ancient Greek and Roman ruins.
On day 1, we visited Termesos with a smelly taxi driver. It's located in a beautiful national forest:
...and has, among many other ruins, an impressive theater in a jaw-dropping location surrounded by mountains. I would love to see a production there...
On Day 2, having reunited with Dad, we visited Aspendos, Perge, and a beautiful waterfall. All three were hard to truly capture with a camera, since much of the magic lay in roaming around extensive ruined cities, enjoying the freedom allowed at these sites (in contrast to anything historically valuable in the US or most of Europe), and gaining a better understanding of and appreciation for ancient life. Nevertheless, I took several photos, stitched together into a panorama, that give some idea of Aspendos. It holds the best-preserved ancient theater in Turkey (it seats 15,000), but more fun for me was wandering the trails behind the theater to other parts of the ancient city. We didn't meet a single other person on the trails until we were essentially back at the theater.
We also spent a day in Olympos, kind of a hippie town. Claire and I spent the night in one of the town's trademark "treehouses" (while Mom and Dad slept in a bungalo with AC):
From there we made it to the Chimera, a place on a mountain where escaping gas is permanently alight in many places...
...and of course to Olympos' main draw, a beautiful beach surrounded by mountains and ruins.
Next on the itinerary was Kapadokya (cappadocia), an amazing place somewhat rreminiscent of the American southwest in that much of the landscape looks completely unearthly:
Completely unlike the American southwest, on the other hand (mesa dwellings being the obvious exception), is that 1. this area was pretty well populated for a long space of time and 2. those people found the ash-rock easy to escavate, so they built into, rather than on top of, the formations. In the picture above, for example, the holes in the rock lead (as many do) to small churches. In fact, even a short walk through this very large area will uncover tons of rock-cut dwellings and churches, too many, in fact, to even preserve or mark them all. (In the modern towns, in addition, these formations and their ancient excavations are integrated into people's shops, dwellings, and homes.) Many of the rock-cut churches were beautifully painted, but only the darkest churches' wall-paintings avoided light damage.
Here's a dramatic rock-cut castle:
and the ubiquitous "fairy chimneys," formed by the different erosion patterns of the volcanic ash rock below and the basalt above:
Kapadokya is one place I'd go back to in heartbeat, and so is the Hagia Sofia (back in Istanbul). Built in the 500s AD in just 5-6 years, it defies the imagination in its scope, art, and history (Byzantine church for 900 years, Ottoman mosque for 500 years, secular museum for close to 100 years: traces of all three stages remain). Again it's hard to capture such a place in photos, but I got a few, of an old (original?) ceiling mosaic:
A later, even more beautiful mosaic:
And a little piece of the inner main body, Mary and Jesus in the upper left, Gabriel to the right of them, the name "Allah" (right?) (oops, my blog is probably on the terrorist watch list now) in Arabic calligraphy on a giant medallion, and the Moslem version of a pulpit below that.
This was truly an amazing trip, and Claire, Mom, and Dad deserve my many thanks for making it possible.
If anyone's interested in a good rundown of my (and my family's) Ireland trip, I highly recommend Nate's coverage, which is excellent and which I don't intend to duplicate.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Well, I have to catch up on picture-blogging one of these days, so I might as well start now!
One month and one week ago, Sara and I headed to Massachusetts. We spent 5 days in some of the hottest summer weather Boston has experienced. We started off by following the popular Freedom Trail, which takes you by some of the most important landmarks from the US's formative years. I have pictures of some of the oldest churches in America and some important peoples' grave stones, and then of Sara and I cooling off at Harvard, but those things are as easily conveyed by words as by pictures.
The next few days were packed with sight-seeing. We headed to the beautifully-sited Institute for Contemporary Art, where they had a really cool (and quite accessible) exhibit of works by Anish Kapoor (most famous for Chicago's Millennium blob). We went on the excellent Sam Adams Brewery tour and sampled several beers at the end. We went to the beautiful Arnold Arboretum and hiked to somewhat of an overlook, pausing by a huge quantity of beautiful roses several times:
We found our way to the first house I ever lived in, at 44 Ivaloo St in Cambridge:
We spent some time with my good college friends Kit (who was generous enough to host us), Ashley, and my fellow ukulele band ("The Foppish Lads") members Elton and Steven, but sadly I didn't get any pictures of them. A highlight was a restaurant and bar's trivia night, where Elton, Sara and I finished in the middle of the pack only after earning lots of points naming the first five Roman emperors after Julius (Octavius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero). And we ate tons of ice cream, especially at the Scooper Bowl, where you paid $8 for all you could eat. They had Ben and Jerry's, Edy's, Breyer's, Hood, some gelato place, and just about any other national or Boston-area brand you could imagine. It really was magical:
On our final day, we finished up the Freedom Trail with the Bunker Hill monument and the USS Constitution. Here's the view from the top of the monument:
(My next post should include the view from the top of the Galata Tower in Istanbul: add some red roofs and minarets, and this could almost be the same picture.)
At the end of the week, we headed for Western Massachusetts for the wedding of one of Sara's friends. The town, Northampton, was quite nice (and well-off...) and had a beautiful, massive park. Sara and I spent some time walking around there, and noticed that in Western Mass, unfortunately, they don't let you throw your dogs away just anywhere:
Finally, I have to show off the car Sara and I rented to get to Northampton. We'd booked pretty much the cheapest we could find at Hertz, but when we arrived they said they didn't have any of those left and wondered if a Mustang would be okay. After careful deliberation, Sara and I agreed to the compromise. We were nervous the rest of the weekend that we might damage such an expensive car, but the worry was worth it for the chance to take this photo in the style of the senior pictures of half of Grinnell High School's class of 2001:
More later!
One month and one week ago, Sara and I headed to Massachusetts. We spent 5 days in some of the hottest summer weather Boston has experienced. We started off by following the popular Freedom Trail, which takes you by some of the most important landmarks from the US's formative years. I have pictures of some of the oldest churches in America and some important peoples' grave stones, and then of Sara and I cooling off at Harvard, but those things are as easily conveyed by words as by pictures.
The next few days were packed with sight-seeing. We headed to the beautifully-sited Institute for Contemporary Art, where they had a really cool (and quite accessible) exhibit of works by Anish Kapoor (most famous for Chicago's Millennium blob). We went on the excellent Sam Adams Brewery tour and sampled several beers at the end. We went to the beautiful Arnold Arboretum and hiked to somewhat of an overlook, pausing by a huge quantity of beautiful roses several times:
We found our way to the first house I ever lived in, at 44 Ivaloo St in Cambridge:
We spent some time with my good college friends Kit (who was generous enough to host us), Ashley, and my fellow ukulele band ("The Foppish Lads") members Elton and Steven, but sadly I didn't get any pictures of them. A highlight was a restaurant and bar's trivia night, where Elton, Sara and I finished in the middle of the pack only after earning lots of points naming the first five Roman emperors after Julius (Octavius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero). And we ate tons of ice cream, especially at the Scooper Bowl, where you paid $8 for all you could eat. They had Ben and Jerry's, Edy's, Breyer's, Hood, some gelato place, and just about any other national or Boston-area brand you could imagine. It really was magical:
On our final day, we finished up the Freedom Trail with the Bunker Hill monument and the USS Constitution. Here's the view from the top of the monument:
(My next post should include the view from the top of the Galata Tower in Istanbul: add some red roofs and minarets, and this could almost be the same picture.)
At the end of the week, we headed for Western Massachusetts for the wedding of one of Sara's friends. The town, Northampton, was quite nice (and well-off...) and had a beautiful, massive park. Sara and I spent some time walking around there, and noticed that in Western Mass, unfortunately, they don't let you throw your dogs away just anywhere:
Finally, I have to show off the car Sara and I rented to get to Northampton. We'd booked pretty much the cheapest we could find at Hertz, but when we arrived they said they didn't have any of those left and wondered if a Mustang would be okay. After careful deliberation, Sara and I agreed to the compromise. We were nervous the rest of the weekend that we might damage such an expensive car, but the worry was worth it for the chance to take this photo in the style of the senior pictures of half of Grinnell High School's class of 2001:
More later!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Life has been a whirlwind lately! Sometimes a a very slow whirlwind, but a whirlwind nevertheless. Sara and I both went to my college reunion (no, I'm not to 5 years yet--it was for my a cappella group) and then her brother's house in Michigan several weeks ago. Then I had a few days at home. Then Sara and I headed out to Boston for most of a week as a little vacation before her friend's wedding in Northampton on the weekend. Then it was off to Turkey to visit my sister, who's been studying there, for two weeks, and then to Ireland for a week for a family reunion and celebration of my uncle's birthday. Finally two days ago I flew back to Indianapolis (20 hours of travel) for the first time in a month. Sara surprised me by meeting me at the airport, which made me really happy! We extended my vacation a day by going to the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting exhibit at the Indiana State Museum (highly recommended, by the way, despite the bizarre name and some issues with crowded installation) and doing some fun shopping, for running shoes among other things.
So finally today I had a semi-normal day, and that was good. But it was still really busy. Among many other things, I had to open a month's worth of mail and over 150 new emails, get rid of an undeserved finance charge on a credit card, buy an airline ticket for my NY and Missouri trips in August, work out my finances for the rest of the (income-free) summer, and figure out why I hadn't gotten my check from the company that accepted the return of a file cabinet that was the wrong size. (That last was the most exciting: turns out the company was losing money and abruptly decided to leave all the people it dealt with--customers and companies alike--out to dry and go bankrupt. I about exclaimed out loud when I read this. Well, that's clearly money I'll never get back.) It's amazing the things that pile up when you're "away from it all" for an extended period of time!
Speaking of which, I'm sure I'll put up some trip pictures and summaries at some point, but they may be slow in coming and a bit terse--I'll be plenty busy for this week at least, and I'm still trying to lay off my right hand. I'm sure Nate (and Claire, once she starts her blog) will fill in what I don't get around to!
As a quick foretaste, here's a picture taken from the location from which we watched part of the exciting Turkey-Germany Euro Cup semifinal: a big outdoor screen in Istanbul, with the Blue Mosque in the background:
More to come!
So finally today I had a semi-normal day, and that was good. But it was still really busy. Among many other things, I had to open a month's worth of mail and over 150 new emails, get rid of an undeserved finance charge on a credit card, buy an airline ticket for my NY and Missouri trips in August, work out my finances for the rest of the (income-free) summer, and figure out why I hadn't gotten my check from the company that accepted the return of a file cabinet that was the wrong size. (That last was the most exciting: turns out the company was losing money and abruptly decided to leave all the people it dealt with--customers and companies alike--out to dry and go bankrupt. I about exclaimed out loud when I read this. Well, that's clearly money I'll never get back.) It's amazing the things that pile up when you're "away from it all" for an extended period of time!
Speaking of which, I'm sure I'll put up some trip pictures and summaries at some point, but they may be slow in coming and a bit terse--I'll be plenty busy for this week at least, and I'm still trying to lay off my right hand. I'm sure Nate (and Claire, once she starts her blog) will fill in what I don't get around to!
As a quick foretaste, here's a picture taken from the location from which we watched part of the exciting Turkey-Germany Euro Cup semifinal: a big outdoor screen in Istanbul, with the Blue Mosque in the background:
More to come!
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