Sultanahmet Suites Istanbul

... need to check your pockets for matches, lighters, pocket knives, bottles of water or whatever. It is really sad and unfortunate that those days are long behind us.
I'm through almost half of my flights and with the exception of the flights within Australia and to and from Fiji, the rest of my flights are business class. Yippee. I so do love business class. At the moment, I'm in the lounge and I don't have ...

... hot hot anyways its only mid afternoon just writing some post cards to send you all so send me some messages and I will write some more later.

Went to the square last nıght at sunset ıts Ramadam so all the famılıes and people came out to eat ıt was lıke a bıt food stall and really excıtıng. We had some really sweet lollypops that made our teeth hurt a bıt then we went for some food.

Istanbul, Turkey traceybelle

... with cultural diversity is a huge amount of history that comes from being the capital of two powerful empires.

There is a definite language barrier here, but I am beginning to understand bits and pieces of the chatter around me. Living here gives me the gratification of seeing very tangible improvements in my vocabulary day by day. Utku and his aunt and uncle are also able to act as translators, which at this stage is ...

... The one good thing we got out of that was we got Turkish delight. It was gross!!!! For dinner we went to a restaurant called Amedros! It was the number one restaurant in all of Istanbul on trip adviser. We got this really ummy thing called a clay pot dish a man would come out with a clay pot and he would take a knife tap it on the side of the pot then WABAAM he would break it open. It was really ummy. GOOD NIGHT!!! Esther

... I walked down the road and ran along the golden horn until eventually I caught my first sight of Asia across in the distance. I've never been out of Europe, so this was quite an amazing sight for me. Just across this meagre stretch of water sat a separate continent. The trains over there ran to Syria and Iran, and from there onto India and countless other weird and wonderful places I'd like to visit one day. It was very tempting, but I ...

... long haired, flower powered adventurers. I have read many books written by the free love generation and they all seemed to stay in the Sulthanamet area of Istanbul so I was keen to follow in their footsteps somewhat and on arrival I got the tram to there. Sulthanamet is the ancient heart of the city and is often referred to as old Istanbul and as it's packed with some wonderful historic sites it's been designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site. The area takes its name from the ...

... matter-of-fact about the dangers involved, said the NGO she worked for had a good reputation and so both sides had an unofficial agreement not to attack them. How reassuring. She's going back for another year after taking a couple of months break. I will be watching the news about Darfour more carefully now. Anyway, we visited the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (excellent!) and Ataturk's mausoleum before leaving Ankara. Then it was off to Cappadocia. On ...

... Dinner @ Hotel Bebek in front of Dardanelli's. 25th Santa Sofia & Blue Mosque. Lunch with Lambs & meat. Clean & cheap. Yerebatan Sarnici in the afternoon. It's great Walk to Grand Bazar. (it's a mess!) Dinner @ Galatasaray Restaurant called Mezza Luna (in an artificial island on the Dardanelli's). Italian restaurant ...

... far, whenever an individual questions your nationality and you declare 'The States' everyone cringes with a despising look followed by an unwarranted rudeness thereafter, it is these people that judge by nationality rather then by people as individuals is what makes them more ignorant then we 'American travelers' could ever be. Slowly coasting into Istanbul, the lights glimmer like Christmas in Minnesota, seems as though were peering out of the train's windows for an hour ...

... radishes, corn.... Plus heaps of fig trees all producing. So we bought a kilo of beautiful ripe figs for YTL3 - substantially better deal than 2 for YLT1 in the spice market a couple of days ago! The walk down to the 7 towers was a lot longer than we thought, then we couldn't find the metro station, so started walking back along the sea front road towards Sultanhamet (which was miles away) intending to find the next metro stop, or at least catch ...