Linda and Athena's Excellent Adventure in Isatanbul, Turkey. September 2017

Is it really all about food?  Not really, but that's where I'm going to start.

Perhaps it will be better to start wit the TRAVEL. It takes a lot of travelling to get from Cedar City, UT to Istanbul, Turkey.
Tuesay, September 27, I arose at 2:30 am to get up, washed, dressed and out the door by 3 am. Mike drove me to St. George to catch the 4 am shuttle to the Las Vegas Airport. I was there in plenty of time for my 7 am flight in terminal 3. I wasn't even hungry, it was so early. I'd expected to grab a Cinnabon or something, but I didn't. I flew from Las Vegas to Chicago, where I had a 3 hour layover. I bought a paper, read it. I ate my banana and 2 huge pumpkin/chocolate chip cookies for breakfast (equavilent to a muffin, I figured). I walked the concourse a couple of times. Then I rode/walked to another terminal when they made a gate change.  Then I caught a flight from O'Hare to Logan airport in Boston.  I had to change terminals via bus, find Turkish Airlines and get checked in and get my boarding pass. I was there by 7:30 or so; my flight left at 11:30 pm.  Again, lots and lots of time in airports, but I would rather have it that way than have to be dashing and risk missing flights.  I also still somehow manage to have my TSA pre-check, so that is nice.  However, I was  not able to keep my rolling carry on with me.  Turkish Airlines said it weighed too much, so I had to check it. Darn.I like having all my luggage with me. I felt kind of like I was missing something after trailing it behind me all day long...and now NOT having it. And having to shoulder my bag instead of riding it atop the rolly one. And all my makeup was in that bag I just checked, so I rather looked a fright for the remainder of our travels.  No biggle.

 I decided to have dinner at this airport, so I had a crab cake with salad and rice at Legal Eagle Seafoods.  Seemed like a good thing to do in Boston!  Yum. 
Then I eventually headed down to the gate Where I awaited Athena's arrival.  We had a fun visit all the way...well, half way to Istanbul.  We haven't see each other in several years, so it was nice to catch up and just chat.  We also ate and slept on the plane. It is an 8 hour flight from Boston to Isatanbul, two meals are included. I ate both. Oink, Oink. But I really hadn't eaten much on Tuesday. I definitely made up for it on Thursday. I did manage to get some snoozes in on airplanes, shuttles and buses through the course of the days of travel, so when we arrived in Istanbul, I could still function. Sort of.
 We eventually made it through the Istanbul airport and customs and found our driver who took us to the hotel.  The hotel is lovely!  Our room is a roomy suite with one king bed, kitchenette, living area--and views!  Oh, the views.  Amazing. I took those photos on my camera, so it'll be a while before I can get those posted on here, but here's one shot of the room.  Central tiled pillar with bed on far side, windows on two sides, posh modern bath.  Just lovely.

Two tired bodies at the Logan internationl Airport in Boston.  The adventure begins!

Our hotel desk person, Burak, checked us into our room and offered to make reservations for us. He asked what we liked to eat. I said, "Everything, anything." He asked if we were vegetarians. We said, "Oh, no. " "We love meat,"  said thoughtless me in an Islam country where most people are basically vegetarian most of the time!! Yikes. So thoughless. So, poor Burak kept that in mind when he made reservations for us at a kabob place down the road. It sounded fine.  Well, it was a FINE restaurant, but totally devoid of customers.  Number one, because it was very late at night, 7:30 ish. Number 2, many/most folks don't eat a lot of meat.  Honestly, our waiter just hovered. I felt really bad that we didn't order a main dish of kabob, but we really just wanted a variety of the appetizers, so that's what we had.  He brought out a sample tray with about 15 options on it, so we selected 5 that looked good, we had lovely pillow bread, plus he brought out a couple of extras just as 'a gift from the kitchen'... and we ordered no meat and no alcohol.  And I think the gratuity was included in the bill, but it was hard to know since I don't speak or read Turkish.  We paid in Turkish Lira and walked back to our hotel.
The views come with a price.  There may be a tram station on the next block (convenient), but our hotel is UP a very steep hill from it.  VERY steep.  Had I not been practiced in doing stairs each day at work, it would have killed me to do that steep hill with uneven walks and treacherous streets. And we're at sea level here basically. Easy Peasy. We'll see how I feel about that in a few days after trekking across town through all these hills!

Our adventure of the day: crossing the street.  The tram way tracks are in the center with vehicle traffic on both sides. Pretty normal.  There is a cross walk with pedestrian lights.  The people just cross when it is clear, no matter if the light says so or not.  Well, it was clear so we crossed the car lanes with everyone else (but a bit slower than they were) when it was clear--only to have to stop before the train tracks because the electric tram was quickly pulling away.  So there we were with a tram whooshing by about 10 inches or less from our noses and toes and traffic whooshing by about 10 to 12 inches behind our backsides.  I think I will cross with the lights from now on, no matter what the rest of the more local population is doing.

When we came back from the restaurant, we headed to the very top of our building which has a roof-top garden.  Even more spectacular views--again, those are on my camera and it was a night, so they may be just big blurs.  I was impressed. The weather is mild. The traffic noisy, our room quiet with air-conditioning so we can keep the windows closed.

I'd like to say I slept well when we fell into be at 9:30 pm.  And I did, but only for about 5 hours.  So I'm blogging at 3 am Istanbul time.  Already the traffic is buzzing outside.