Photoless interlude

(I wrote this a couple of days ago in Selcuk.)

The internet situation at my current hotel/pension is not conducive to uploading photos, so I'm going to hold off on posting more of those until I get to my next place (where I should have wi-fi). Please enjoy this text-only entry :)

Last week in Istanbul I was noticing that there were toddlers and preschoolers running all over the place at break-neck speeds on the cobblestone streets and other tricky places. Good lord, I thought, how are they not falling on the ground and bashing their adorable little brains out? Not that all American children sit around decorously except when confined to soft carpeted areas, but I was highly impressed by the recklessness of the Turkish under-six crowd.

A couple of days later another thought came to me, at first seemingly unrelated, when I saw another little girl with a bandage on her forehead. I never saw so many small children with bandaids and gauze and whatnot on their faces before I came to Turkey. And then I had my aha moment! So now I suspect that the recklessness is not entirely without consequences. Hopefully a bandage on the nose is the worst of it for most of them.

Just finished reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (is that right?), by Junot Diaz. Good book! I read it on Kindle for iPhone, which is a first for me. I don't like the Kindle for iPhone interface as much as I like the Stanza interface (another iPhone/iPod touch e-reader). But it's not bad. And it's nice to be able to bring books with me without having to actually bring a pile of books. Using the e-readers does tend to eat up the battery life on the iPod, though, so I have to remember to charge it every night, which is a pain since I should also charge my camera battery and I only have one plug adapter. I should get more plug adapters, or maybe next time bring a US extension cord with multiple outlets.

I'm writing this from the garden of the hotel; there is a little swimming pool and birds keep swooping low and skimming over the top of it. I don't know if they're eating bugs (in which case, thanks, birds!) or drinking the water (in which case, I hope it doesn't make you sick!). It's very nice though.