dolphins alongside the ferry to kadikoy / cups of hot salep with cinnamon sprinkled on top, made, it transpires, from the tubers of wild orchids, whose subsequent decline has led to the banning of their export, so that drinking it is like a very mild version of eating panda burgers / the perfect stillness and proportionof the library of ahmed lll in the topkapi palace / in the archaeological museum, the most beautiful tiny clay tablets covered in hittite cuneiform inscriptions and slipped inside slightly larger clay envelopes also covered in cuneiorm script /  the vertiginous panoramic view at the top of the galata tower from which, in the early seventeenth century the ottoman traveller evilya celebi flew across the bosphorus on artificial wings / the grand bazaar for all the obvious reasons / drinking tea beside the bosphorous, watching monumental container ships (one of them carrying several hundred farm tractors) en route from lord alone knows where to lord alone knows where / the way the calls to prayer compete and overlap / the street dogs / the smell of thyme / storks / parakeets...