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Coasting.54

Yes, the wharves by SF’s ferry building can count as “coast” on my own blog if I decide they do. And yes, this means I’ve an urgent need to get to some “real” coastline again asap, or we may run dry on images for this series even sooner than the previously-noted country canals. Second to last post from that March – April US swing, already two months ago, goodness me but time flies when you’re chasing postable images. 🙂

Village Views.44

Attentive readers may note that in a comment on yesterday’s post, my friend & fellow meditator Gretchen agreed that was indeed “country” – perhaps even wilderness – but expressed doubt how it could NL with that rocky hillside as a backdrop. Those of you viewing these posts as email alerts (thanks for following me!) and on mobile phones see only a simplified version, which for some reason hides the meta-data with Categories (in the case of both that post and this: Iraq), and Tags (in both cases again, Kurdistan region). If you go to a full website version, you should be able to see it all, in small type at the bottom of each individual post. I’ll still be working my way through these photos for a while, but still in reference to that last Country Canals post, I’m happy to to say just yesterday I found myself beside a lovely little canal in a verdant part of North Hollland where I was able to snap some new shots, so they won’t all be Iraqi “canals” of the borderline variety in the weeks ahead 🙂

Country Canals.34

I still maintain I’m allowed to call these canals, since it’s my blog after all … even if you consider them cascades instead :-). Though I do need to get out to some more-traditional canals in some Dutch countryside soon, or even my tortured categorizations won’t let me carry this series much longer. We can certainly agree this is the countryside, right?

County Views.124

Nikos leading the way on the steeper ascent of Henry’s Knob, in Annadel, a fitting last photo from the most recent visit to good ol’ SoCo. 🙂

City Lights.24

City Lights.21

Though the long days do limit my exposure to city lights, they also give me more enerty to notice things like the glorious lingering light in a 10pm / 22:00 sky, and the city clock on Valeriusplein, as I walk home from another lovely concert at Concertgebouw :-).

From The Air.4

As noted in yesterday’s post, I connected through Istanbul again at the end of January. Since citizens will be voting in a rather important runoff election there today (Sunday the 28th, I believe?), these photos taken during the approach to Istanbul’s airport on that flight feel appropriate for today’s entry. Full confession, I’ve never been outside the airport in Istanbul, so though I’ve looked at maps and fantasized about its storied history, to be honest I have no idea what we’re looking at in any of these Istanbul images 🙂

 

From the Air.3

When I flew back from that last trip to Iraq, we flew north towards a connection in Istanbul. That flight path took us directly over some of those historic, high and lovely mountains which house the sources of the Tigris, into which the various streams I’ve been showing you in some of these earlier posts flow. As you’ve seen also in at least one prior post, even the closer mountains were nicely snowcapped when I was there. So I stared and stared out the window, uncertain whether the white things I saw could be mountain tops, and whether I was maybe seeing some of the mountains named in ancient texts, or just more cloud peaks. Can you tell?? 🙂

Islands.23

This one is a bit more obviously a little island; I’d just never noticed it before. These must be heaven for the birds and small mammals of our urban park, since no one boats and I’ve never seen people swim in these canals, and dogs only going in to retrieve sticks…

Country Canals.33

Village Views.43

A lovely sunrise on my last morning in Hawija, back in January. (Already four months ago!)