"...Istanbul, not Constantinople..."

We arrived in Istanbul yesterday mid afternoon. We were picked up After a hectic couple days of travel, we were pretty tired and weren't up for much site seeing. We were picked up from the airport by a representative of our tour company who dropped us at our Istanbul accommodation. Sue and Granddad were waiting for us when we arrived, so after dropping our bags we went for a short stroll and grabbed a bite to eat at a place called "Kofte" which means "meatball" in Turkish. Dinner was good and we finished it with some Turkish tea, which we later learned is often offered as a sign of friendship, and we have had a lot of it since. The tea is served in a small handle-less glass, which is very hard to hold when it contains hot tea, so that in and of itself was quite the adventure. After dinner we stopped into a corner store to buy a couple of bottles of water, which cost one Turkish Lira, or about 65 cents American. Wee then went back to the hotel, and after an exhausting trip, collapsed into bed.

Today was a jam packed day full of sight seeing. After a quick breakfast at the hotel we left on our tour bus for the sultan ahmed area of Istanbul which is home to many of Istanbul's greatest attractions. The first stop was the Blue Mosque. The Blue Mosque was built by the 16th Sultan and is called the Blue Mosque because of the blue colored tiles that plaster the inner walls of the mosque. The color turquoise originated when the color featured on these tiles began to be referred to as the "color of the Turks". The Blue Mosque is surrounded by 6 minarets. The Sultan had originally asked for a minaret made entirely of gold, or "altin" but mistakenly the constructors thought he had said "altu" or six, hence the six minarets. The Blue Mosque is still a fully functional mosque and can accommodate up to 10,000 people praying at once.

After the Blue Mosque, we headed to the Basilica Cistern. The Basilica Cistern dates back to 532 A.D. and is the largest such cistern. There are more that 360 columns. The water in the cistern was brought into the cistern by aqua ducts from a forest approximately 20 kilometers away. The cistern took more than 2000 slaves to build and 76 of those slaves lost their lives during its construction. The water from the cistern was piped out and used for a variety of purposes throughout the city.

Next we went to the Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was completed in 537 AD and was originally constructed as a church and was operated as such for over 900 years. Then after the 15th century when the Ottomans conquered the region, the Hagia Sofia was converted to a mosque and the Christian frescoes which date back as far as the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, and which depicted Jesus, the virgin Mary, and various other Christian icons and symbols were covered as according to the Muslim faith these types depictions were considered to be distractions from prayer and thus they were covered with the more traditional geometric tiles. The Hagia Sofia was operated as a mosque for some 600 years before Ataturk turned the facility into a museum in 1934. Because of its Christian roots, the Hagia Sofia is very different from other mosques such as the Blue Mosque. For example, unlike the Blue Mosque which had more than 200 windows, the Hagia Sofia has very few windows. The Hagia Sofia however has more than 116 columns which have been brought in from various areas and from various famous structures via the Aegean Sea. The marble on the floors and walls came from Marmara Island, where marble got its name. The dome of the mosque itself has actually collapsed three times.

Finally, we went to the Topkapi Palace, the Sultan's domain. Topkapi Palace was established in 1478. The Ottoman Empire was in its prime from 1299 to 1699 and modern Turkey was established in 1923. The second courtyard was only entered by the Sultan during festivals, while the third courtyard is where the Sultan greeted his guests. The Topkapi Palace has an excellent collection of the Sultan's clothing and prize possessions, most of which are richly adorned in diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. The most interesting piece was a diamond, 86 Karats to be exact. The diamond was found in a trash dumpster and purchased by a peddler for 3 spoons. Later upon the discovery that the gem was indeed a diamond, it was turned into a ring and worn by the Sultan. Some people have all the luck! I have never found a diamond digging through the trash! In addition to the Sultan's possessions, Topkapi Palace is also home to some very important Islamic articles, some of which are also of importance to those of the Christian faith. The Topkapi Palace is allegedly home to such articles as the Prophet David's sword, the Prophet Moses staff, the turbin of the Prophet Joseph, and the arm and scull of the Prophet John the Baptist. While in the rooms feature the Islamic artifacts we were quickly rushed out of the room as some VERY important looking people were coming in from behind us. When we returned to our guide, we were informed that the gentleman was a famous politician and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

After a busy day of touring we had a rest before walking to find some place to have dinner. One of my favorite things about traveling is when you come across a place where no one speaks a word of English and you obviously don't speak a word of their language and some how having to work it out. Granddad was trying to find out what kind of soup their soup was and they had no idea what he was asking, finally they just brought him some to taste. Then Granddad wanted some bread and they brought us everything but bread including a bottle of what looked like vegetable oil (what they thought we wanted that for was beyond me), but finally we got some pida bread. It wasn't the best food, but it was just the type of adventure I enjoy so much.

Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for Gallipoli!

Almost there!

Well after a rocky start we made it to Europe. Both flights so far have been pretty decent. One downside of having to rebook our Toronto to London flight to the morning of the 4th was that I was planning on sleeping through the entire flight, but instead I was up the entire flight. But there is always a silver lining, the nice thing about long international flights is that you usually have your own personal T.V. and I finally caught up on some "chick flicks" that a certain husband of mine refuses to watch with me! We had only a short layover in London, so we didn't make it into town to sight-see as we had planned, but I think perhaps that was for the best, there is always next time!

The flight to Cairo was only about 5 hours but since we were in business class for this flight we were both able to get a solid 2-3 hours of sleep, not much, but I'll take it. International travel is such a bizarre thing. I don't know whether to be tired or awake and I don't know whether I should be eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner, so I just try to sleep when its dark and eat what they bring me and trust that my body will catch up with me.

We are looking forward to reaching our final destination and meeting up with Sue and Grandad to commence our tour of Turkey and Greece, but first a few hours to kill in the Cairo airport....thank goodness for our Presidents Club membership!

Here we go.....again.....

We had a bit of stress at the Indianapolis Airport checking in as we heard the desk clerks telling individuals with the same connection to London from Toronto as us that they would have to rebook for the morning as they would not make their connection. However, to our great relief when we arrived at the check-in desk our check-in went through...pretty sure the only reason we were allowed to check-in is because we didn't check any bags. We were still pretty nervous though but we finally boarded our flight to Toronto and took off around 9:30pm. Our connecting flight was to leave Toronto at 11:15pm, it was going to be close.

Aboard the plane the flight attendant, Daniel was unbelievably kind when he heard our dilemma and kindly arranged for us to switch seats (of course we were in the very back row) with a gentleman in the first row. So we landed in Toronto at 10:50pm but after taxing to the gate and opening the door we had only 10 minutes to clear immigration and make our way to the gate....it was too late. Luckily for us the delay was due to mechanical problems, so we had a nice night at the Crowne Plaza Toronto Airport, compliments of Air Canada.

Attempt # 2 will be this morning at 8:50. Wish us luck!

Friends with Benefits

It's great to have friends with benefits, well, more like jobs with benefits. Working in the hospitality industry and specifically at hotels has definitely had its perks, the biggest of those perks being employee rates. Having traveled on employee rates with both Hilton and Intercontinental Hotels since college, I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a hotel room, so I figured why start now! I am fortunate enough to have a great relationship with my employer/boss and even though my last day is just two days away, they are allowing me to travel on employee rates on my upcoming trip. Now employee rates are unfortunately not as easy to come by as one might think. Internationally they can only be booked 90 days in advance and in prime tourist destinations they are extremely hard to come by. With that being said I did have pretty good luck and was able to book employee rates at six different cities on our European itinerary. While it was our intention to "rough it" at hostels, spending as little as possible throughout our trip, I'm certain people won't think we are roughing it the first three cities on our itinerary after the Turkey/Greece tours. Our first stop on our own will be Budapest, Hungary where I was able to book the Intercontinental Budapest at an employee rate of 44 Euros a night. After that we will head to Vienna, Austria where we will again utilize an employee rate of 44 Euros a night at the Intercontinental Vienna. Then on to Salzburg where we will stay at the Holiday Inn Salzburg City for 29 Euros a night. From Austria we will move on through Switzerland and into the French Alps "roughing it" at hostels until we head South to the French Riviera where we will have two nights at the Holiday Inn Garden Court Cannes-Le Cannet at an employee rate of 36 Euros a night. After a couple days soaking up the sun in Southern France we will head to Spain and Portugal with stops in Pamplona, Barcelona, Mallorca, Ibiza, Seville, Lisbon, and our final stop in Madrid where we will finish our Spanish holiday in style at the Intercontinental Madrid for 44 Euros a night. From Madrid we head towards Paris via the Loire Valley. We will end our trip at the Holiday Inn Paris-Gar de L'est where I was able to secure an employee rate of 44 Euros a night. These accommodations in these six cities will give us a break from the hostel life without costing us a dime. In many of these cities hostels started around 23 Euros a night PER PERSON, so many of these hotels will actually cost us less than if we stayed in a hostel, it's a whole different kind of "roughing it". With a little under half of our accommodations booked we still need to arrange accommodation for the other nine or so cities we will visit during our journey, but we will likely book these along the way or find accommodation when we arrive in each of these remaining cities. Employee rates....a benefit I will definitely miss.

Come on, ride the train, it's the choo choo train

I've only ever been on a train two times in my life, that I can remember anyway. Something tells me that trains in Europe are a whole other ball game however. What better way to make our way from city to city than by train? Sure its not necessarily the quickest way to get from point A to point B, and with a growing number of inter-European discount airlines, flights between many European cities have become very inexpensive, but there is no other way I would want to travel during our trip than by train. Its such a part of the quintessential "backpacking through Europe" experience. There are several different options when traveling by train. You can purchase point to point tickets which are best when only visiting a few cities, or you can purchase a rail pass. There are many different types of passes, individual country passes, regional passes, select passes (up to 5 countries connected by train/ferry), and global passes (21 countries). Most of these passes are available for both flexible or consecutive travel days and for varying lengths of time. Tim and I selected the 1 month consecutive global pass which will allow for unlimited travel within the 21 countries included on the global pass for one month. It was very exciting to receive our passes in the mail. With each purchase/booking I become more and more excited. I can't wait to be whizzing through the European countryside planning what we will do at our next exciting stop on our amazing European journey.

Away We'll Fly

It's amazing how quickly time goes by. With our Europe trip less than three months away, it was time to start working out the logistics, and the first thing on my list was to book the flights. Luckily we were fortunate enough to have additional frequent flyer miles, even after booking our flights to Australia this December, and were able to use these additional miles to book our Europe flights as well. As planned, we will leave the U.S. on our anniversary, the third of June. Our flight leaves Indianapolis at 7:50pm on Thursday, June 3rd, which means we will likely share an anniversary meal together at the Indianapolis airport as we wait to embark on our journey. We will have a two hour layover in Toronto before we jump over the pond, arriving in London at 11:25am on Friday, June 4th. We found it was easiest to book our reward flights going in/out of London/Paris, but as you recall, we are scheduled to start our trip in Istanbul, Turkey on Saturday, June 5th, so we will only be in London for the better part of the day, departing at 10:30pm Friday, June 4th for Cairo, Egypt where we will again have a few hours before boarding our final flight (by this time I am certain we will be ready to fall into a bed for a good night's sleep) at 10:45am on Saturday, June 5th. We will arrive at our final destination (or our first destination depending on how you look at it) at 1:00pm on Saturday, June 5th and will check into our hotel in Istanbul to get a good nights rest as we will hit the ground running the very next day.

The weeks that follow our arrival in Istanbul are sure to be amazing, exciting, exhausting, among many other things as we make our way from Istanbul, Turkey to Paris, France. After nearly two months of travel I am certain we will be sad to end our journey, but will be eager to return home to family, friends, and of course, our beloved puppy Milo. We will leave Paris at 7:20am on Tuesday, July 27th and will arrive back in Indianapolis (via Lisbon, Portugal and Newark, New Jersey) at 10:18pm that same evening.

It is nice to know how our journey will begin and end, but I cannot wait to see what we encounter along the way!