A photographic portrait of my favorite place in Vienna. Where I plotted and planned and polished off two Cesar Aira books, an inbox of emails, a healthy number of kleiner and grosser mochas, a good amount of cake, and other noshes of equally high merit. My last evening was spent sitting outside eating a sandwich …

This morning I met some fellow school mates who have moved here. Drank a lot of Turkish Coffee.  Bought Simits, a sort of round pretzel, for the journey tomorrow, as well as peanuts coated with sesame seeds and locum wrapped in rose petals. Trawled a few shops for old photos, the best being a shot …

Afternoon arrival in Istanbul, ferry to Kadıköy from Bakirkoy Fast Ferry Dock. waited out the sudden storm at the dock then dragged my bags up and up the hill. Terrific lunch with Arde and Hande: outside mezze, kebaps, raki and sun over all. Well needed nap under a warm siamese cat listening to passersby, the crying …

A remarkable woman Maria, last name Popova, like the Russian artist. she has long black hair, a long black skirt to her ankles, petite, rib cage bird cage, delicate and elegant, smoking cigarette after cigarette through a wooden cigarette holder as she lounges in the open window of the ICA kitchen. I lean against the …

Trip to Rila. A large van with driver, a Slovakian woman studying German in Sofia, a middle aged Australian woman with her possibly Greek husband, a American couple in a bubble with their Lands-end clothing, backpack, bellypack, tennis shoes. they had traveled many places already on this trip and so bubblefied said rude things in …

The Bulgarian countryside is very dramatic. Went to a fabulous church in the mountains today.

There is a book by the Austrian writer Gert Jonke where the main character begins to commune with the statues of Vienna, they ask him: what is this thing, sleep? And so he shows them; he sleeps for hours, days months… the statues watch. it evidently was based on a period of his own life …