Friday September 2: 12:00 pm
London

Day one done and on to our mission. Three days, five galleries, spread too many tube stops across London. Saatchi tops the list, so to Sloan Square it is on the most rare of sunny days in England.

We sit and watch the swans in Hyde Park dig their beaks into their feathers. Lose ourselves in the cheap t-shirt labyrinth of Camden Markets. Drink beer outdoors over olives and an envelope of event flyers.

Bring vodka sev to a bench in a parkette up the street from the hostel. Disappear into a plain black bar of east end locals. Stop to marvel at a society of plastic dolls and action figures set up inside the fence of an apartment building on our walk home.

Game over and into bed, Serpentine and White Cube in the morning.

Thursday September 1: 11:00 pm
London

Sleep an hour half on the basement floor, wake to packed bags and a late night party alley. Up İstiklal Avenue to Taksim Square, buy tickets to the airport. Sleep some more by the ticket stalls, the international seats a welcome home mat.

Slump down into any seat on the aircraft. Find the tube and transfer at Notting Hill, Hugh Grant references noted. Out to Sheppard’s Bush and the first English speaking cab ride of the calendar.

Find a pretty lady on a patio behind a tiny hostel. Unpack and to the park, back on the tube to a terribly crowded Soho. South past hummers and luxury haircuts, heels, botox, and lipgloss.

Down into the gaybourhood; tight t-shirt spilling onto streets and bringing with them breath of nineties pop albums. Right into Chinatown and finally a theatre. Four beers, two tickets, the evening showing of Pulp Fiction.

Park song, part whichever

Too many months passed on concrete, without so much as a single afternoon spent stretched out on a blanket with a book a best friend. To the big park we go, the one we'd seen on TV. The one she'd been to once before and forgotten.

So much to do in a city pulsing all around us. But the heat wave won over any guide book plans that had been suggested. When London gives you a sunny afternoon, we figure this is how to spend it.

Wednesday August 30: 12:00 am
Istanbul

Locals tan on towels laid down on the side of the rocky road. The sun beats down heavy on all of the horses’ backs. We curve along the path that circles the island hill. The skinny beach is crowded all the way.

Finally a peak pokes through the trees, the big beach reveal. Tramping down we pass three women and a fire, a shack, and half a path to the empty rocks. Run out into shining corridor dividing the water and the sky.

Float on salty water, wading through schools of jellyfish. Flip backwards and let the waves take the body any way. Slip on sunglasses and close eyelids, thinking that the plane leaves tomorrow but today will never end.

Birds ate my face

-Istanbul, Summer Twenty-Eleven

Tuesday August 29: 11:00 am
Istanbul

Hung over from the second night of Wolf. Take breakfast with our motley crue of travelers and make plans for the Asian half. Take off down to the waterfront to find a ferry heading east.

Take the crammed boat from port to port, wondering where we are. Walk down new streets, climbing into each other’s brain. Walk through relationships, friendships, business, travel; sex.

Twist up and down the streets of the outer neighborhood. Turn back to the water and run back on the boat. Step back and shake foggy heads, hoping we picked a ferry to take us back.

Luck in and watch the boat pull up to home.

Sunsets and car crashes

-Istanbul, Summery Twenty-Eleven

Topkapı Palace

Skip past all long lines, sunlight leaked into stupid ears. Turn music on full blast and nod head back and forth to take the beauty in. Crop photos close to collage patterns together, the micro maxing out a bigger picture.

Gone go the long lines of columns over walkways and broad, impressive domes. All that’s left is the sunlight in a single passage and a dangling golden ball.