Istanbul Intl Airport Hotel

... and if you had the time, would be well worth devoting a day to properly exploring it's depths.

After a pause for some lunch we headed out for a cruise along the Bosphorous. This hour long boat trip is well well worth the 9 lira. A wonderful view of the city can be had from the ferry and some prime photo opportunities are presented. We arrived back to the city just as the sun was setting over the massive domed mosques, an absolutely perfect ending to our ...

... It was mostly flat with some rolling hills and it was all farmland. Large agro-farms it looked like rather than small family farms. You pass miles of those before you finally arrive in the bustling 5 million person city of Ankara.

We had to stop for lunch outside Ankara because there was no where we could easily park the bus within the city.

Bart and Jo insisted that they really wanted Pides. Of course, with the language barrier between the driver, guide and ...

... if you would like a carpet demonstration; they give you a compliment-or say anything they can think of, sometimes creative, to entice you into their store. We negotiated a little bit for a chess set in one shop until it appeared that the shopkeeper was angry with our offer. Judith asked: "are you angry" to which he said: "yes, what you offer me is so low". So I added: "we are sorry that we angered you, we will be leaving now," which ...

... we familiarize ourselves to our base and find a supermarket and a mom and pop shop which sells cheap beer. Then we head out to the main avenue of Istiklal Caddesi. We are surprised how cosmopolitan this part of the city feels. The people are diverse, hip, fashionable and puffing away on some strong cigarettes. It feels like we are in the EU not a Muslim country, I mean I see very few head scarves and there are tons of bars where beer and wine being ...

... went wild and tried one topped with Tahini and sugar). Towards the end of our time in Turkey we started to get used to early morning wake-ups with the first call to prayer from one (or more) of the nearby mosques. When the city or neighborhood has multiple mosques, it's not uncommon for them to choose different times for each of the five announcements over the loudspeakers. In larger places, the speaker's chant can be lovely ...

... Sultan which turned out to be one of the oldest buildings in the district and had just been bought by two Canadian women and had just opened the week before. After finding another place to stay (I'll let Hannah or Halle describe our current digs) we had to go back to the Modern Sultan where the owners invited us to join them in their "Beer Sunday" afternoon which led to spending the entire day and evening with them in their not yet ...

... and offered fast track entry to the Mosque by a man who's cousin happened to work on the worshipers only door and who, by an amazing coincidence!!! had a carpet shop just around the corner. We tried to hide from him when we came out but why oh why is Dean so tall and noticeable? Once we had escaped from said shop, after many admiring comments obviously, we found ourselves in the Arasta Bazaar but soon realised ...

... chicken, lettuce, carrots and onions - called a doner kebab. The next thing we did was walk about hundred feet to the Egyptian Spice Market. I thought it would just be selling food goods and edible things, but instead it had all the shops that the Grand Bazaar had, and a lot others. After that my dad wanted to see the New Mosque. We didn't know much about it, other than it was built in the late 1500's ...

... who is in control of your luggage. If not, our luggage will probably be sent to Iran instead. Tomorrow we will know if our fake smiles worked, or if we are destined to wear these same clothes for the next two weeks. Having not eaten since 6am, it's time to grab something for the stomach. Not a huge variety of food in the terminal, so we head for a wine/bistro. Knowing that internation flights mean full dinners, we opt to share a tuna ...

... surprised to find that there were a few men in there and we glad to be wearing our bikini bottoms underneath the rather skimpy kikoys. We were given pillows and a table cloth to lie on to protect us from the hot marble. It was heavenly and I began to feel very languid. I could easily imagine summoning a pot of chai and a dish of Turkish delight.... After twenty rather sweaty minutes the ladies came back to cool us down and then give us both a good ...