Istanbul - Love It!

Love it, love it, love it. Lyra said in our trip, "I love visiting new places. It's interesting." And it was.

Love - twisting turning little streets that go up and down the myriad of hills in the city
Love - European city vibe crossed with being in a Muslim country
Love - the friendly shop keepers who were always out in front of their shops greeting the people walking by
Love - people walking, walking, everywhere
Love - great food; meze (little salads served before every meal); grilled fish; honey soaked cakes for dessert
Love - ancient and rich history as the one-time center of the Roman and Ottoman empires
Love - the Bosphorus; a beautiful straight that divides the European from the Asian side of the city
Love - the beautiful domed mosques with their spires that top the hills in every direction
Love - cats, cats, cats (and kittens) around every corner, in shop windows, sunning on sidewalk corners
Love - the rainy, damp weather we had our first days as we strolled the city with our umbrellas and leapt across rivulets running down the sidewalks
Love - lokum; gooey sweet lovely Turkish Delight with hazelnuts and pistachios
Love - Grand Hotel Londra; our lovely 'back in time' hotel built for the arrival of the passengers from the Orient Express - a lobby straight from an Agatha Christie novel
Love - the English bookstore we found on our last night - I could have browsed for days "That's OK, Baba. Books are more interesting than television," said Lyra.
Love - Simits; little round sesame coated bread (kind of like a round pretzel)
Love - Beer and wine available at every little cafe or restaurant (like it should be) instead of isolated to the high-priced hotels.
Love - wearing my jacket and wrapping a scarf around my neck to keep warm
Love - the hundreds of people fishing off the sides of bridges and piers for sardines and sea bass
Love - the sea of jelly fish we saw from our ferry as we neared the Black Sea
Love - Turkish coffee; sweet, smooth, a bit earthy, and strong
Love - cheese, olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers with crusty bread for breakfast.


What didn't I love?
Getting up at 2am to catch our flight, a touch of Ataturks revenge from what I think must have been a bad piece of chicken, the confusion/fascination/disorientation of the Turkish people wondering why Lyra looked 'Japanese' (they were totally smitten with her) it was sometimes too much attention, not having packed enough long pants (after months of heat & sunshine I couldn't get my brain to believe I'd want to actually wear long plants & sleeves), staying up until 5:30am on our flight home.

It was good to get away for a few days. Pics are coming.