Dave and Pita

I have another story. I have been spending my days finishing my thesis updated link to my thesis…and it is finally done. Printed, bound, and sent for review. If any of you have a free couple of hours that you want to waste, you can read it here here.

But that’s not the story. I was talking about rainbows…so about 5 weeks ago, this small dog showed up in our neighborhood and decided not to leave. In fact, he moved right into our house. After being exposed to the dangers he was facing on the street (think grandmothers with brooms, big hungry wild dogs, and overaggressive cats) and his sugary disposition we decided to let him adopt us. So we have a dog. His name is Pita. (Formally, Mogwai Skilopita, which translated from the two languages we have stolen from to make his name, means ‘devil dog pie’. Amazingly, this truly is the most accurate description of his character).

Anyway, he wakes me up at 7am every morning to go for a walk. And a few mornings ago, I was greeted by this.

Rainbows over Chania Harbor

Didn’t get as good a set of photos as I wanted, since by the time I finished the dog walk and got the camera from back home, this was all that was left of it. (Yes, left of it.) I have never seen quite a rainbow as what it was…one double rainbow – two spectrums – and another on top. So even though this little dog has put a dent in our freedom, and quite possibly our plans to visit our newfound friends in their home countries, things with Pita always seem to end in rainbows…even begrudged 7am outings.

From "More Istanbul" set

First, a disclaimer: Sadly, between the rain which lasted nearly our entire trip and the diminishing quality of our abused digital camera, we managed to return from Istanbul with a lot of really bad photos. The trip was great… wet, but great. The photos we took don’t really do that magnificent city justice.

Luckily, our travel companions also took lots of photos and links to them are included below as well.

The Photos

• Kristy’s Picasa account > Constantinople…I mean, Istanbul…I mean, Constantinople
• I uploaded more Istanbul photos to my Picasa account, in addition to my really lame How To Travel To Istanbul (and back) photo set (just in case you missed that…)
• Koumbaros Christos put his Constantinople October 2008 collection up on Picasa as well.

Some of my favorites:

• the post-hamam experience – hamam is a Turkish bath… we got scrubbed GOOD!
• our travel companions in Istanbul: Vassilis, Anastasis, Christos (r-l)
• our late night troop, gettin’ jiggy wit it
• the whole gang: (l-r) Vassilis, Irini, Kristy, Dave, Christos, Anastasis

So there you go – photos as promised. Kristy still owes us all a recount in prose, but at least for now we’ve delivered (sorta) the goods on the photographic proof. And it only took us nearly three weeks…