a hike

the chora church, while outside the earlier walls, was just within the later walls, which are remarkably well-preserved, as practically nothing else from Byzantium is. It's a striking contrast to Rome, where there are traces everywhere of imperial Rome.



I had walked there through some less than beautiful neighborhoods, and figured the walk back would be roughly the same. It wasn't: there are bits and pieces of shantytown here, with lots of angry looking young men who presumably would not want to discuss the finer points of international diplomacy in general, but who might be very interested in informing me of their opinion of the US and its role in helping Israel do such things as bomb schools. Did you know that only 7% of Turkish people have a positive opinion of Americans, according to our very own state department? I escaped by heading downhill whereever possible, and then hopping on the nearest water-bus back to eminonu. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the shanty town, but it hardly seemed like the thing to do at the time. Instead, I got a nice picture of a mosque on the way back on the boat: