3 days in Instanbul

Hotel is nice, staff are nice and helpful. First day hit the Grand Bazaar getting Deb some clothes. I am still wearing the trackie dacks! Got some jeans and a Turkish top, scarf and sandals. Starting to feel a little better. But we are not very happy about the baggage still. Decide we should just act like it never happened and continued doing what we had planned.

Day 2 - spice bazaar, cruise on the Bosphorus, blue mosque and hagia Sofia. Back to the hotel after dinner and apple tea next door with our friends at the gozleme shop. Even Alex drinks the apple tea. Our bags have arrived! Just so glad to see them.

Moods are much better this morning since we got our bags back! The missing bags were mine and the spare (with Mandolin and camera)

Alex has been having lots of new experiences and making new friends. We get some stares sometimes but mostly people work out that he is different and make a bigger effort. People in Turkey are very friendly. I think on the whole he is taking to the additional discipline from us very well. He is responding, trying new things and learning. We are pretty impressed.


Cheesy turkish night club show last night. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Arrrrgh. But Geoff and Alex did like the Belly Dancers.

Off to pick up car today. Bit apprehensive driving here looks much worse than Italy. They drive like crazies here. See Observation on One Way Streets.

Hotel has free wifi. This seems to be common here. See Observation on Cost of Wifi and Water. iPhone is great. Got the data working after calling TravelSim. Very expensive in Turkey. $3.73/100kb. Goes down to 0.57/100kb in every other country (including Greece). Google maps has saved us a couple of times by telling us where we are when we didn't have a clue. Can't read the street signs (when there are some).

Highlights - Turkish ice cream and toffee on a stick from the street vendors. Turkish delight (with honey and double pistachio) and dried fruits stuffed with nuts from the spice bazaar. Mosques and prayer time ringing out across the city. See the Pictures.