Geo: 37.0391, 27.4302Dad and Josh watched the sun rise together today. Here are a few of their pictures. They noted that the sun rises quite quickly here. I don't know how one would explain that.We've been woken the last few nights/mornings by random dogs barking. Josh saw one of them this morning. He was running up and down the loop that goes near the house. Josh described him as acting like Paul Revere, giving the alert to the other neighborhood dogs.Nearly all the females here wear bikinis at the beach, regardless of age or weight. It's somewhat emboldening. Perhaps I will buy one before the summer is over. Clearly no one here cares what I look like. I seem to own the only tankini. Josh observed that being overweight carries many health risks: "getting cholesterol, getting ... read more

Geo: 36.9575, 27.131This is information from our host. It's about a holy day that is celebrated today:Kandil It is necessary to add that Turks have a personal way of following Islam. A great number of Muslim Turks will enjoy a nice alcoholic beverage, smoke cigarettes and make the most of the "good things in life", though taking care not to do these during religious occasions such as Ramazan (Ramadan) or the Kandil. This is, of course, an unofficial declaration on your researchers part.Ramazan is the holy month when for thirty days a good Muslim lets nothing pass his/her lips during daylight hours; no eating, drinking, smoking or even licking a postage stamp. Some restaurants and nightclubs are closed during the month of Ramazan. Mosque festivals are called Kandil, which means Candle. It is so called because ... read more

Geo: 36.9499, 27.4219Here is the first part:Today's favorite part of the day will undoubtedly be the shuttle bus ride from the hotel to the airport. The bus with the driver and another guy showed up about 20 minutes late. This was apparently due to their need to gas up. Luckily, we left ourselves plenty of time. We laughed about this some more as our driver wove over around and through the backstreets of Istanbul, obviously lost. I say obviously because we were revisiting scenes from National Lampoon's European Vacation when Chevy Chase cruised the same streets over and over saying, "Big Ben, Parliament!"Eventually we got loose and onto the freeway and things were looking good. We were only running about 40 minutes behind. Then our bus sideswiped a taxi. Mike was able to get video of ... read more

Geo: 41.1075, 28.7079Yes, we are starting to lose steam. Today our plan was not very ambitious. We only had the Istanbul Archeology Museum left on our to-do list. We also needed to come up with a way to get the the airport on the Asian side of the city in time for our plane tomorrow. After checking Turkeytravelplanner.com, we went to a recommended agency and arranged for a shuttle. They usually only have two per day so we were resigned to arriving at the airport many hours early (again), but luckily someone else had arranged for a shuttle to pick them up about noon so we are going to fill the shuttle going in the other direction. It's a win/win.After checking that off the list we had the rest of the day to spend at the ... read more

Geo: 41.1075, 28.7079It was something we really wanted to try and were really looking forward to, but didn't know what to expect: the traditional Turkish Hamam. We (Kate and I) chose to go to a 400+ year old hamam that was designed by the preeminent architect of the Ottoman era: Sinan. I thought the architecture would be more impressive and, I imagine it is in the men's section. This hamam and most others are segregated either by area or by time/day. Since we are women, we didn't get to see the more ornate side. It's still up in the air whether or not Mike will go and report back on how the other half bathes.When you go in you select what you want to do off the menu. I picked the scrub and soapy massage. For ... read more