Day 14 After our arrival to Istanbul yesterday we took a walk around the area of our hotel. Taxim is in the main part of town right near tons of shops and restaurants. Istanbul is full of great areas all over the city and with 10 million residents every where is busy, but it is beautiful to walk around the shopping districts and restaurants and clubs. The hotel recommended a great restaurant where we ate traditional Turkish food. The hotel employee even walked us to the restaurant. What great service! And the food was yummy! Today we did the traditional day tour of Istanbul. Istanbul is a very pretty town and much cleaner than we expected. After some bus shuffling we were off to see the sites. We visited some mosques, sultans' palaces and a bazaar. ... read more

Day 12 This was our last full day in Hurghada so we thought we better get out and not spend the entire time by the pool. We went on a jeep safari. We were piled into land cruisers and off into the desert we drove. This time we were lucky enough to be with a large group from Poland. Again we were the only non Polish people besides the guides in the group. We arrived at a Bedouin village and after some tea in the huts, we were taken around to see how they live. We had another opportunity to ride camels in a circle but passed on this one as we were still sore from the 50 minute camel ride in Aswan. The local women were making some of the best Arabic bread direct with ... read more

Day 11 The day started as our first day that we did not have to get up and had no plans. So we slept in, ate a huge breakfast and then proceeded down to the pool and beach to start our day's activities of absolutely nothing. It was great. The weather was perfect, hot but not too hot. We did spend a good part of the day answering questions to the workers of where we were from. Not one guessed we were from America. They all assume Germany, Holland or Italy. And many said we did not have an American accent. Guess they do not get many Americans here. We completed the day with a nap in the room watching some Beverly Hills Cop II. Quality American TV. Now we are heading to dinner and then ... read more

We had to skip a few days’ journals that we will make up later for, because we just could not pass up telling you about day 9 and 10. Day 9 Day 9 started with our departure from Aswan and the Nile cruise. Betty and Judy had an early flight to Cairo and then back to the U.S. This is officially the end of their trip. Now Kirsten and Chester do not have to worry about some woman pounding on their door at 6:30 in the morning and calling that “a wake-up call.” Chester and Kirsten took a later flight from Aswan via Cairo to Hurghada, Egypt, a resort area located on the Red Sea. The resort is beautiful and is right on the beach overlooking the Red Sea. It has all white buildings and an ... read more

Day 5 - Luxor This was also an early morning for us. We had an 8 am flight and a 6 am departure from our hotel. Judy is still knocking on our door to make sure we are up and it is still excruciatingly annoying. Karma is a b*#$% though. The previous night we went back to the Thai restaurant that we ate at the first night in our hotel. Judy loves pad thai and was very excited to have it again. Chester just wanted a drink. So anyway, fast forward to the morning, Judy got food poisoning and was sick all night and then entire next day. Half way through our day, Betty got sick as well. Kirsten and Chester were fine! Maybe if Judy didn’t always feel like she needed to knock on our ... read more