making my grandmas cinnamon swirl cookies. among others. my aunts string trick works great!
18.12.10
exhausted from decorating
poor lisa jr is so tired from all her decorating she has to take a nap before putting the star on top.
frozen shrimp
the first snow fall that sticks! it's so exciting! the shrimp on the seafood restaurant across the street looks cold, though.
lightswitch
the tree lighting ceremony in the willis tower was today. i didn't go, but when i came into work, it was dark and on the way home aparently the giant lightswitch (!) had been flipped because as you can see, it is merry and bright.
343/365
happy thanksgiving! i've been so bad at taking photos. but there was this whole mirrored wall at this fancy hotel in grand rapids that we stopped at to go to the bathroom before heading to our fancy wine and cheese bar experience.
thank you
I really really want this job! so i thought i'd make a really cute thank you card so they couldn't help but hire me! couldn't you?
343/365
Job interview outfit! I really really really want this job at this tensioned fabric sign company. I hope i get it! I also am using this photo on a tutoring website to encourage people to use me as thier sewing tutor!
goodwill
we need ugly christmas sweaters for our xmas card photo. which of these are the worst, do you think?
341/365
dear mitzi,
this is not playing. this is a little violent for playing.
love,
caitlin.
PS stay away from the other cats already!
this is not playing. this is a little violent for playing.
love,
caitlin.
PS stay away from the other cats already!
340/365
me and wendy. Mom's wig. i had to move her to get to the xmas wrapping paper. my hair is getting too long to really wear her. it's such a nice wig though. i feel like it should get out more.
15.11.10
339/365
took lisa's laptop to the coffee shop to search for jobs outside, since it's probably the last chance this year to sit outside. with my warm apple cider and pumpkin cheesecake, it felt cozy and autumnal.
337/365
i have been knitting small animals. if you leave a comment, maybe i'll knit one for you. think about it.
336/365
alright, i give up. you win. I'll blog again. You know, though, it's hard to be inspired to do something new if no one reads it. anyway, my hair is long enough for pigtails now.
30.10.10
335/365
on the airplane home! it's so nice having a seatmate that you know and like. it makes sharing the armrest much easier. i've never flown internationally with someone before, lisa! made the 12.5 fly by (how punny!) and i got to watch the end of the devil wears prada, which i had been curious about ever since the flight there.
334/365
another street cat! our last day in istanbul we took the ferry (an expensive one! 3 whole TL per person!) to the princes' islands. it's where istanbulians have their fancy summer homes. there are no cars allowed on the islands, so there's lots of bikes (which were being guarded by this cat) and horsedrawn carrages and apparently a donkey but we didn't see it. it was really nice and quaint without being too touristy. it seemed like even though it was a resort place, it catered to turks instead of international tourists.
333/365
This photo feels so much like istanbul to me. i love all the blurry people on the street behind me. I was getting frustrated with going out with lisa and her friends because it's SO expensive to drink in a muslim country. so i decided to give up alcohol for the rest of my trip. of course, as soon as i said this, lisa and i had dinner at this wine bar which had a 22TL bottle of white. so we did end up splitting that. most of the menus of places we went to were translated, even if the descriptions weren't, and even if the waitstaff didn't speak english. but this place had a bizzare layout- page one was turkish wine, page 2 was english wine, page three was appetizers with turkish on the left english on the right, page 4 was salads in turkish with the english below each item.... and the pastas weren't translated at all, so i was very proud and so glad memorizing my turkish veggies came in handy!
332/365
in the blue mosque. LIsa forgot to bring a scarf that day, so i gave her the one i was wearing, so i ended up wearing a sheet. pretty silly looking, but still, respectful i think. i love the crazy woman behind us in this one. when we were in the blue mosque there was a couple who had a camera and appeared to be filming one of the worshippers which i was shocked at, and couldn't figure out why no one stopped them.... until the guy finished praying and walked over to them and took the camera from them and thanked them!
331/365
as promised,. here i am at the new mosque feeding the streetcat ayran during the call to prayer- although you need to see the video to hear that. you can't see it in the picture ;) ayran is the official drink of turkey. it comes free with every döner sandwich and kebab, it seems, and it's DISGUSTING. it's a salted yogurt drink that i think you have to be raised on, because no one but turks (and ruth!) like it.
330/365
In the grand bazaar. Very overwhelming. we were on the lookout for turkish lamps, but they were much too expensive. we did find a great scarf vendor though. it did make us really cheap for scarve the rest fo the trip, though! if you've bought some for 3TL it's hard to pay 10.
329/365
a very Turkish morning. It was sort of damp so instead of sitting outside at the cafe we sat in a sort of tent thing. but there were still beanbag chairs and turkish radio and çay (tea) and elma nargile (apple flavored water pipe) and tavla (backgammon). much more fun and relaxing than trying to sightsee in the rain.
galeta tower
so many views of it from far away, here it is from the bottom. although when you think of all the stair-streets and hills i had to climb up to get here, "bottom" is kind of a relative term.
sappho
you know, the poet who gave lesbians their name? there were so many greek gods and heroes and sculpture after sculpture in the archeological museum, but this one stood out to me- ok, it was also in the center of the room and 5 feet tall, but still.
medusa head
the underground cistern is kinda crazy. it's so huge and elegant, but it's so deeply underground, to think of it being 1500 years old makes me worry it will all crumble around me... but the arches have been standing this long, i'm sure they'll stay standing till i'm above ground again!
the medusa heads are aparently contriversial. people say they're upside down so they don't turn anyone to stone and the like. i subscribe to the theory that they were just throwing whatever they could find in the basement, and the medusa heads were just the right height.
the medusa heads are aparently contriversial. people say they're upside down so they don't turn anyone to stone and the like. i subscribe to the theory that they were just throwing whatever they could find in the basement, and the medusa heads were just the right height.
OLIVES!
I wish i would have taken a picture of the spices in the spice market, but it's always so crowded i didn't want to make a fuss. but i was able to catch this one at the olive vendor. i HATE olives, so i am disgustingly facinated by all the options.
328/365
this is actually in the princes' rooms. i love these wood and inlaid mother of pearl cabnets. and of course the tile. always beautiful tile. Lisa didn't pay the extra money to go through the Harem, which was a pity because i like the harem best out of all the topkapı palace.
harem
this is the sultan's recieving room in topkapı sarıyı. I really liked topkapı palace, it seemed like a beautiful palace to live in. it seems really İstanbul-y, too. i want lots of turkish tile and domes and chandeliers and mosaics in our house.
327/365
view from the top of the city wall. it's so crazy that everything is so old. like, 1500 years old. this is looking east, so what you can see best is the skyscrapers of the business district where the bridge across the bospherus is.
climbing up the city wall
lisa got half way up and freaked out and went back down. she needed a railing or something on those steep uneven stairs. i was scared but i stuck close to the wall and it was fine. and the view was worth it.
lisa with another cat
i don't even remember where this one was. there were so many cute and friendly street cats.
Oh! it was waiting for the ferry up the golden horn! this kitty wanted to get on the boat with us and go to Balat and Fene
Oh! it was waiting for the ferry up the golden horn! this kitty wanted to get on the boat with us and go to Balat and Fene
326/365
after visiting the rüstem paşa mosque. It was my first mosque and it was a really nice one. it's super small and seems like a real place of worship instead of just a tourist attraction. it was very beautiful, just as lovely as the bigger ones. it's on the second floor- underneath is a bunch of storefronts on a very crowded shopping street- they used to support the mosque i guess. LIsa and i didn't wear headscarves in istanbul usually. many women don't, in the neighborhood where we were staying there are lots of modern muslim turkish women who don't. when we went to the neighborhood of Balat it seemed like everyone did, but the only time i felt inappropriately exposed was when i was wearting a halter top that showed my arms shoulders and back. i'm glad we were there in october- i can only imagine how hot it would be in the summer, i don't think i'd be able to dress modestly! Lisa and i did cover our heads and took off our shoes in mosques. it's only polite. when we went to the blue mosque there was a whole group of japanese tourists (that's a total sterotype, i have no idea, maybe they were from vietnam or the philipines) who didn't, and it seemed really rude and tacky to me. Plus, lisa and i had just been to the grand bazzar and she had bought all these beautiful scaves, so we were really excited to wear them. it's cool to wear scarves anyway, so we usually had one around our necks. I think ruth wore one in town in Eyüp, a very holy place, but i never went anywhere but mosques where i felt i needed to.
325/365
butterfly! i was reading my guidebook trying to decide what to do next because i couldn't go to the blue mosque since it was closed for prayer. and this guy landed on my leg and stayed for a long time.
furry archeologist
even though the hagia sophia is super old, there were two previous ones built there before that. they don't know anything about the first one, but the 2nd they recently found ruins of. so they have them all dug up where they found them, and they are so deep you can't get close- but cats can! this one curled up and slept on the sunwarmed artifact.
hagia sophia mosaic detail
obviously jesus in the middle. zoe's on the right, her dad the sultan was sad to not have a son. then she had a hard time finding a good man. so everytime she married one of her three husbands they kept painting over the left-hand guy's face and re-mosaicing his name. classy.
324/365
this is from the galata bridge. We couldn't figure out what mosque this was for a while, but we figured out it's the new mosque. it's right by the spice market- a few days later lisa took a video of us by the mosque during the day, feeding a cat ayran during the call to prayer.
first breakfast
so charming, right? sheep cheese, full fat yogurt, etc. and the view from our apartment makes the 4 flights of stairs totally worthwhile.
323/365
Airplane swag. not just your basic blanket pillow headphones. not just a european upgrade of hazelnuts instead of peanuts and wine. but there's a whole little case they gave us with slipper socks and earplugs and lip balm and an eyemask and a toothbrush and toothpaste! really! and they fed us three times, which is hard to do on a flight that leaves at 10:30 PM and arrives at 5PM. Go turkish airlines.
323/365
Airplane swag. not just your basic blanket pillow headphones. not just a european upgrade of hazelnuts instead of peanuts and wine. but there's a whole little case they gave us with slipper socks and earplugs and lip balm and an eyemask and a toothbrush and toothpaste! really! and they fed us three times, which is hard to do on a flight that leaves at 10:30 PM and arrives at 5PM. Go turkish airlines.
322/365
Waiting for the bus to the bus to the train to the plane to Istanbul. I have a bunch of pictures i'm uploading to flickr Right Now. so i'll put some on the blog but if you want to see all of them click through.
14.10.10
to all trains
don't you love the hands? I was running an errand today in evanston and got off the train at central, farther north than i've ever been (and that's saying a lot considering i LIVE farther north than many chicagoians have ever been) and saw this marvelous sign. i'm not in it, but i thought it'd be a good picture to leave my blog with. I leave TODAY. our flight to Îstanbul is tonight at 10:30. I did finally get my phone unlocked, and of course i'll be taking pictures, but i can't guarentee that i'll find time to post them all to my blog with cute little discriptions and everything. You can also try my flickr stream (which you can get to by clicking on any of these pictures) where i post pictures before they get the titles and discriptions and stuff you see here. In the meantime, comment everyone! because it inspires me to post more often!
321/365
Sick day still life. i was planning on working this whole week before istanbul, but then didn't i have to go and get the flu on tuesday. wednesday i took the day off, and thurs the boss decided we're not working. so the most important thing is to get better before we leave. to acomplish that i have: (clockwise from right saltines, sock knitting, simpsons flannel pjs, multiple hankerchiefs, chocolate pudding, roku movies, and tea from the alice in wonderland teapot i painted for my mom in a mug from my tour of the celestial seasonings factory. not picured: mucus meds.
320/365
lisa bought us chinese food for dinner. (she's generous like that.) I actually like the taste of fortune cookies very much, but this time i actually got good fotunes too- "others admire your independence" and "your sparkle will never fade!"
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