September 2015

This month flew by– probably because I made two small trips, one across the ocean and one within Turkey. I was in the US for exactly a week to see family in Boston and Vermont, which was just short enough for every moment to be special. Then I went on a three-day trip to Cappadocia with a friend of mine to photograph and hike. Even though I’d been to all those places before—Boston, Vermont, Cappadocia—they delighted me as if it were the first time. And at some point, summer slipped away into autumn and the sun started setting earlier and here we are, October. Where does time go??

Best Of The Month

The two whirlwind trips this month were the clear highlights. Spending a quick summer week with my family in Boston and Burlington, Vermont was beautiful in every way, from the Labor Day Red Sox game we attended to the golden mornings in a cottage in Vermont farmland, from quick rendezvous with a few of my close friends in Boston to swimming in crisp Lake Champlain in the waning days of Vermont summer.

My hiking adventure during a long weekend in Cappadocia later in the month left me exhilarated. We spent so much time hiking and taking pictures that I felt reinvigorated physically and creatively. There will be much more about this trip posted (soon, I hope).

Worst Of The Month

Sometimes people ask me how my life is in Turkey, expecting a dramatic answer about geopolitics or whatever. Really, the biggest problem I had this month was that the shower drain in my apartment was busted for a while, and getting anyone to fix it turned into a massive headache. I just live a regular life here, in many ways.

Also, my checked bag made it back to Istanbul the day after I did, which meant I spent 24-hours in a bit of a panic, worried it would fall into a black hole of bureaucracy. It showed up at 11:30pm the day after I landed in Turkey; it was a long day.

And we didn’t see or ride balloons in Cappadocia, due to the weather. But that trip was so exceptional that the lack of balloons seems like a small blip.

What I’m Loving

Reads: I finally read The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht, a fantastical novel about the post-war Balkans that had been on my radar for a while. It was riveting, one of those books you don’t want to finish because the world of the novel is so rich. I’ve also been reading Rome Noir, another novel in the anthology series that I mentioned in my June round-up.

Music: I think it’s clear that I love music from all over the world, and that I particularly love the compilations from Analog Africa. Mostly this is because the music is just SO DAMN GOOD, but also because it introduces me to music from parts of the world that I would never even know to seek out. Much of my wanderlust for various countries in Africa has come directly from my musical obsessions.

Afro-Beat Airwaves is my current jam; I listen to it on repeat and dance around my room (and then look up and realize the neighbors across the street are watching. Oh well.) If you were ever wondering how cool music from Ghana and Togo was in the ‘70’s, this is your answer. REALLY COOL.

(A side note, the founder of this label just added me on Facebook, because the internet makes the world small. Maybe he will read this. If so: Hi! And thank you for your awesome taste in music!)

I started listening to some wonderful Turkish belly dance music that I used to be obsessed with a few years ago, but have rarely listened to since I moved here. It’s Rom music from the Sulukule district of the city, which was emptied and gentrified years ago but used to have a rousing Gypsy nightclub scene. It reminds me of how much Istanbul fascinated me before I lived here, when it was just a captivating distant place to me.

And then there’s this song Kala by Mbongwana Star, a band from Kinshasa I started listening to over the summer. Because not all the international music I listen to is old, some is emphatically grooving in the present.

Etc: This podcast from 99% Invisible about Brutalism and Boston City Hall did such a good job explaining why I love this much-maligned form of architecture. I wanted to pump my fist and whoop. It was such a beautiful way of explaining how anyone can love weird concrete buildings. The podcast is only 20 minutes long, give it a listen.

The Film Files

This was the first month in a long time that I felt like a real photographer again. Maybe it was because I started a second Instagram account just for my film photography (follow it! @KatrinkaFilm) which has me digging through my vast archive and getting in touch with my photography roots.

Also, I had two excellent trips with no major camera mishaps, so I had ample opportunity to shoot—especially in Cappadocia, where my friend Simone was as focused on the photography as I was. I shot six rolls in three days and ended up with some fantastic images. I also tried out Lomography’s LomoChrome Purple film, and the results were stunning–  I will be posting about these images soon, I can’t wait to share them! I even had a chance this month to walk around with my Yashica TLR… it was a productive month for film.

Ephemera

To my surprise and delight, I was quoted in this Yahoo!Travel article about Karakoy, one of the hippest neighborhoods in Istanbul.

I was also interviewed by Girl About The Globe about Istanbul; unfortunately the interview took place in the depths of gross summer so I look like I might be melting, but otherwise it was a cool experience.

Upcoming

I’ve done a lot of traveling this year for work and pleasure, but it’s almost all been to places I’ve visited before. Finally I’m going on a trip to somewhere new, just for me—Plovdiv, Bulgaria! My friend Nate from Yomadic is there, and he has promised to take me to abandoned Communist monuments. How can I resist?

What’s the best thing that happened to you this month?