We’re now settled in at our new home on the Asian side of the Bosporus, in the section of Istanbul known as Kadıköy. It’s a 25 minute ferry ride, or a 5 minute subway ride to the European side. We almost always choose the ferry with its great views and tea sellers bringing tea to your seat for about 50 cents a glass.

Our apartment is delightful, light and modern, but nothing historic or charming about it. We’re 3 flights up a curving staircase and we look out into sycamore trees in the back, and a view of our street in the front.

What a street! Below, I’ve made a slideshow of some of the businesses we walk by daily in the 5 blocks just south of us. It’s a young, hip district, always busy, and with unleashed dogs and cats everywhere. Like Alice’s Restaurant, you can get anything you want (probably including Alice).

Here’s a little overview of the pix below. First, a few of the bakeries. Fortunately, so far, we’re walking at least a few miles every day, so this isn’t the problem it might become in the winter. Of course, there’s no lack of dondurma, ice cream, either. Kadıköy is actually famous as one of the centers of bread baking in Istanbul, so besides bakeries, there’s loads of bread bakeries, firinlar (singular: firin). And to complement the ever wafting smell of baking bread coming in our windows, there’s the Turkish pizza shops selling pide (pronounced pea-day), and the döner (shwarma, gyro) shops adding more layers of fragrance to the air. In case you need something to drink, to wash down your pide or baklava, there’s at least 8 coffee shops along the street, maybe more. (And that doesn’t count all the ones down the side streets, which I still haven’t explored carefully.) But if you want to get serious about eating, there’s lots of traditional Turkish lokantas, restaurants, displaying their dishes cafeteria style. Lokanta food…that’s some of my favorite food in the world. But not all the food here is prepared. There’s also dry foods (nuts, fruit, coffee, tea) and groceries in abundance. Want a tattoo? Need a workout? Like vintage clothes? All here. Not to mention home goods, hardware stores, new clothes, and, well… the list goes on.

So sit back, take a few minutes to relax, and enjoy a tour thru our local reality.