Geo: 41.0245, 28.9881We're here! We're here!After a great flight from Dulles we landed in Istanbul this afternoon. Let me tell you a little about our flight...In Dulles we had to exchange our boarding passes from United for Turkish Air boarding passes. No big deal there, but in doing that we were given access to their First Class lounge and some little "express passport" paper. Of course, eager to make the most of Eve and Leroy's generosity in arranging our first class transport, we headed right off to the lounge. Oh, good golly. So very relaxing and pleasant...though Mary did mention that it looked like it had been decorated by Elvis. OOOKKKK - maybe she' a little tired. We enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee, I had some yummy lentil soup and we both finished with strawberry ... read more

Geo: 40.3927, -105.074This it Turkey minus 7 days! A week from right now I'll be at Denver International Airport. The requisite 3 hours before my international flight.Let's see, am I organized? Pretty much, though I still need to print my postcard address labels. It is much lighter to carry a sheet of pre-printed address labels than my entire address book. Need to make my money cheat sheet - a 3x5 or 4x6 card with one side showing Dollars to Turkish Lira to Euros in a variety of amounts and in that order, the other side going from Lira to Dollars to Euros. A handy on the fly currency conversion.Tomorrow I will pack (yes, seriously) and then spend the rest of the week trying not to put anything else into my bag! And ironing is on the ... read more