Mutlu yıllar!

Happy twenty-ten everyone!  We're back in Istanbul - well, I'm here for another few hours :(  My flight leaves tomorrow at 6:35am.  Oy.  And last night I (along with everyone else in the family) got very little sleep.  The "no special" celebration turned out to entail raucous street parties, loud Arabic music, squealing tires, drunken college students, etc., until 4am-ish.  And we had to keep the windows open to counteract the heater, which tho set at 'low' still seemed to want to keep the room at a healthy 90° or so.

We caught the 9am bus out of Edirne ;)  So the city wasn't great, but we got a good two days' worth of entertainment out of it, and it was WAY different from Istanbul.  I feel like we definitely have a more complete (though by no means actually complete) view of Turkey because of it.  Plus, I need to say that, just like in Istanbul, everyone was extremely nice.  Plus, unlike Istanbul, very few people spoke English, and those who did, didn't well; nonetheless they went far out of their way to help us tourists.

After getting into Istanbul, we took a crazy shuttle through town, which bounced and swerved so much that it almost made Mom throw up.  Then we ate at a really nice little restaurant a few blocks away from our hotel.  As we walked there, we were greeted by a bunch of shop and restaurant owners asking us questions like "Where'd you go?"  and "How was Edirne?"  I felt a bit like a celebrity.  The food was really good, and we got to sit outside (on January 1st!) because it was 64° today and not a cloud in the sky.  Then we went back to the hotel, unpacked (and I repacked) and chatted with Fatih. 

From there we walked to the bazaar for Annaliese to buy some more scarves and for me to get a good Turkish dictionary (the only one I had before was not thorough enough).  On the way, Annaliese realized she'd left her expensive camera sitting on her chair outside of the restaurant we'd had lunch at.  She jogged back and found it right where she'd left it.  The owner apologized numerous times for not having noticed, and several people murmured in astonishment "Just look how safe it is here!"

Well, we're off to Turquoise again for my last meal in Turkey :(  This was an absolutely wonderful trip.  Annaliese has said several times this is the second country (not counting the US) in which she could see herself living.  Thank you, Mom, Dad, Anna, Fatih, Rolf, Hermann, Anita, Volker, for making this one of the best vacations of my life! 

Love, peace and good fortune in the New Year!
Colin

PS - My parents have promised to post one more entry to this blog tomorrow evening, their last day in Turkey.