Beautiful Turkey!

Hi everyone~
Well I am back...as we pulled into Turkey, the internet went down and did not come back up until yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours and now this morning, it looks like we will have no more problems until the next time...

First things first...Steve arrived safe and sound the day before we arrived and got a bit of jet-lag out of his system. We actually arrived on-time at 0800 even though we were delayed a full day out of Egypt-amazing how quick this ship can be-once out of the rough waters, Captain cranked it up and we went flying to Turkey. I began to get a very bad cold and the night before we arrived, was down with a fever and cough, along with about 200 others on board...along with the cold came the cold weather...we arrived in Turkey to snow the on the ground the day before, a drop in temperature of over 20 degrees and shock to all of our systems, having been in warmto hot weather for the past 70 or so days!

Little less than an hour after we docked, Steve came aboard and I gave him the grand tour...of course by today, he has the lay of the land and we will be in Croatia tomorrow...still seeing if he might stay until Cadiz, Spain, but chances are he will leave from Croatia next Sunday.

So, Turkey-it is as amazing as I remember, although it has been 18 years since the last time I was here...so much rich history, where east meets west and more mosques than you can imagine! We took the "city tour" the first day to get our feet wet and see some of the major sights. This actually turned out to be a great thing with my cold still in tact...saw the blue mosque, Aya Sofia museum, which once was both a mosque and church but now a museum in restoration, sulleyman mosque, the Cisterns and even stopped at Steve's hotel from the night before and grabbed his bags for a free ride back to the ship. We met these children in front of the blue mosque who were practicing their English with tourists and of course I latched onto one who was just adorable. It had been a long plane flight for him and with my cold in prime, we headed back to the ship and stayed there for the night...Steve was able to get settled into the "suite" and an early evening gave us a chance to get up early the next day to a new day in Istanbul.

We really had a perfect leisurely 4 days in Istanbul and for the first time, I was able to enjoy the port city to the fullest...with so much to see in Istanbul, this was not hard to fill the days.

The 2nd day was a trip to the old bazaar-of course no stop is without shopping...of course Turkey is best known for its gold, carpets and knick knacks gallore! By this time in the voyage, I am clearer that collecting anymore chatski's is probably not a good idea, but did find quite a bit of silver jewelry that I know I am going to cherish...I met up with a dear friend of John Tymitz from SAS named Joseph who turned out to be such a joy and wonderful person-we went back twice to buy more from him, but also just to enjoy his company! We really did a sweep the first day to get a lay of the land and came back the 4th day to do the power shopping! We also went to the cistern, which we had missed the 1st day instead to pick up Steve's luggage and I must say, although there years ago, it was cool to see again! We had doner for lunch, which is either chicken or lamb and beef on a huge long skewer that is shaved off for a wonderful sandwich! We walked around quite a bit and also came upon this women making Turkish pancakes that we came back to the next day to have for lunch...of course LOVE the food here and took advantage as much as we could to enjoy the cuisine-especially some of the desserts like baklava, turkish delights and the like! During the day and the end of the day, coffee and tea breaks became a regular routine for us, but the great part was the spots we found walking up the street or just in time after a long day when we could not go another step...amazing little gems of places to stop and take in the sights-I will include 2 with the views~one during the day on top of the city and one overlooking the golden horn! We ended up coming back to the ship around 6 again and enjoying a relaxing evening on the ship.

The 3rd day consisted of heading to the Topkopi Palace, which was a 3 hour tour back in history to the 22 sultans that called this palatial estate home...Steve especially enjoyed the Harem section of the palace where we found out that the harem sometimes consisted of up to 400 women, with most of the Sultans favoring about 3-5 wives but about 25 favorites! From there, we headed down the hill to have lunch at the pancake place-I am going to see if I can find one of these big round grills in the states...we'll have turkish pancake parties when I get back! We walked all the way down the hill to the spice market, which of course was also fun to walk through and smell all of the variety of spices that Turkey and this region is known for...more saffron will be coming home as well!

Day 4 started and ended with a power shopping day back at the market...Steve did some damage as well as I and Debbie also joined us on this day. By the time we were done, we were all pretty crispy and came back once again to the ship. We rested a bit, but then decided to head out to Taxim, which was the hip part of town that we did not want to miss...walked around quite a bit, Steve had this wonderful turkish dessert (cream puffs with chocolate sauce poured over the top) at which time, we decided to walk down the hill to catch the tram home...needless to say, we got a little lost, but after circling the edge of the golden horn, found our way back to Karakoy, a familiar stop on the tram that then took us back home to the ship.

The final day was spent taking a ferry to the asia side by ferry and falling upon the town and walking around. It was actually quite modern, but the food vendors and people out and about was quite enjoyable to be among the locals...we were finally able to get together with my cousin, Sibel around 4pm for a drive up the coast and dinner at one of her favorite spots. It still amazes me to this day how cosmopolitan the city is and what an amazing amount of rich history there is here in this city! Here are some pics before I head to bed to get up to see us pull into Debrovnik, Croatia! We really had a wonderful time here in Istanbul and looking forward to Croatia tomorrow! There are so many more stories to tell but these were just some of the highlights!

The 2 days at sea were also very fun-Steve got to experience the Captain's dinner and the day to day runnings of the ship-and a massage today to boot for his birthday coming up this week-more later about these 2 days!

The downloading is taking forever and I need to go to bed-will try and add some more pics tomorrow!

Much love sent across the miles~
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