Farewell Turkey

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We are in the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, enjoying a Turkish coffee. Our flight doesn't leave until 1:55 pm and it's about 11:15 now. We got to the airport about 10. Our ride was supposed to pick us at at 10 am but when we got back to the hotel at 9:40 he was waiting, so we quickly grabbed our bags and left about 9:45. Traffic to the airport wasn't too bad, considering Istanbul traffic, and it was a pleasant ride. The van got into a fender-bender at the airport. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often, since cars, buses, trams, all pass each other with millimetres to spare. This time there wasn't even a millimetre to spare! Oh well, we grabbed our bags and hopped out.

This morning our alarm didn't go off until 7 am, which was nice. We had a leisurely breakfast with most of the members of our group, and said good bye to everyone. Veronica and John had left early - about 6 am. We will really miss Chris and Grant, as we really enjoyed travelling with them, and now count them as friends. Chris and Grant have a few more days in Istanbul, and shortly after breakfast they walked to their new hotel. They got a much better rate at a nearby hotel.

Susan and I walked to the shop we had seen before that had beautiful purses in the window. They are leather, with kilm silk embroidered designs. I bought a beautiful bag for work, in a dark red colour. It was expensive but beautiful and I will think of Turkey every time I use it. Then we walked back to the Q-Inn to find our ride waiting for us. We packed my new purse in my suitcase, grabbed our bags, and headed out. It was drizzling on and off this morning, one of the very few days it hasn't been a beautiful sunny day. We had perfect weather almost all the time in Turkey, sunny and warm, but generally not too hot at all.

We've been sitting at a different gate as ours was full; there was a flight to Moscow leaving before our flight to London. We'll go see if there is space at the gate now. Farewell Turkey! My next entry will be from London. I've never been to London before so I am very excited 😊

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