As we settle into Istanbul life it’s easy to cease to feel the wonder and distinctness of everything around us. Now, Nancy has her research to help keep her eyes and mind open, and I have my poetry to un-protect me. Still, we both think it’s important to keep exploring. And lo and behold, we have discovered there’s so much to see near to home.

I’ve named this slideshow In 12 Steps, but it’s not a recovery program; rather it’s a discovery program. We were walking thru some back streets and turned a corner. In the next 12 steps we took, these are 12 of the things we saw… (All images have been lightly manipulated to compensate for the mediocre quality of the camera and mediocre skills of the camera-man.)

Turn a corner, and there's the Bos(porus).

Across the street, the entrance to an old, abandoned synagogue.

And 2 doors up the street and to my right, an abandoned home...

... and turning to my left, an entranceway.

Remains of a demolished home.

A few more steps; I turned and looked back at the abandoned home.

This one I call "balconies."

The home at the end of the "Balconies" picture.

I turned around...

More graffiti-art.

Bougainvillea.

At the open door of a crafts shop...

Thunderstorms delay our departure 3 hours.
Us, the ever-light travelers, today burdened with three 50 pound suitcases, plus carry-ons, plus briefcase and backpack full of books and electronics.
Security going in, and passport control coming out… a breeze. Yes, TSA is definitely worth it.
First stop, Arnavutkoy, a hip section of European-side Istanbul, where we’ll stay for eight days until our apartment in Kadikoy on the Asian side, is available. Arnavutkoy translates to Albanian Village, where Suleiman settled commandeered Albanian workers to build/rebuild streets and roads of the newly conquered Constantinople. The place has gone thru changes.
Here’s some visual impressions taken in the first two hours of our arrival, before a meal of olive-stuffed grape leaves and spinach manta, then to stagger off to bed, where I lay awake for hours, while Nancy happily slept.
Like most sections of Istanbul along the Bosporus, the contour rises steeply from the water along organic, winding streets and alleys. We are about halfway up the steep trek to Arnavutkoy’s upper hilltops.