Monday, October 26, 2009

Cat City

I'm back blogging after a week's vacation in Istanbul, Turkey. What a wonderful trip we had! I would highly recommend this destination. I'll post more on our trip in the upcoming weeks, but I wanted to post some of my cat pictures. More will follow!

I have never seen so many stray cats in my life. When we were outside, I don't think I went more than 5 minutes without seeing one! If I'd taken pictures of every one I'd seen, that's all I would have had time to do.

This cat was lounging in the grounds of Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. When I stopped petting her, she meowed and looked forlornly after me. Not all of the cats were this welcoming to human attention!


Cats lounging in the shadow of Chora Church:Cats in Asian Turkey:
We didn't get the greatest picture, but were unsure what this cat had done to earn the medal around his neck:
Earlier in the week, we had seen a beautiful all-white cat limping towards us. She looked at us, and we were startled to see that she had one green eye and one blue eye. She was so stunning that she'd run away before I gathered my wits about me to take a picture! Back in my hotel room, I read in the guidebook that she was most likely an endangered Van Cat.

We didn't see another one, but after that, every white cat we saw, we endeavored to take its picture!In addition to cats, we saw several ringneck parakeets flying around in the Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace areas. We heard them before we saw them, but did have the pleasure several times to see them soaring high above us; their brilliant green feathers shining against the blue sky. We assume these are escapees -- we'd also seen ringneck parakeets at Kew Gardens in London.

2 comments:

Naim said...

I wish I could go to Istanbul. My Uncle got married there at Hagia Sophia I think.

Mary said...

I would highly recommend a trip to Istanbul -- the Hagia Sophia was amazing.

I hope you're able to make it there someday!!!

Thomas and I agreed it was our favorite European trip so far.