Turkey

I spent the night in Istanbul last night after an evening arrival from Prague en route to Cyprus. Turkish Airline was quite considerate to put me, and several fellow travelers, up in a hotel in the city. I had only a little time to walk around this morning and took this picture from the hotel balcony, looking across the street onto a street market that I later walked through.

I mentioned in my previous post the hotel U Suteru in Prague. I didn't have time to post the photo from the lobby yesterday, so here it is. I'm posting thumbnails of these to save you time. I hope that you can click on the thumbnail and see the bigger image. If not, I think you can view them in the photo gallery.

I must go get my boarding pass now, grab a bite of lunch here in the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, and then I'll be on my way back to the family in Cyprus. I talked to them last night, using my Skype-Out account which is the only reasonable priced way to talk, and they are doing well. I hope they have many pictures to post on the blog, but just have not had a chance to upload them and describe their adventures.
Peter

I am sitting in the Istanbul Airport awaiting my connecting flight to Prague. I left the girls in Cyprus to tour around while I jog up north a bit to Prague to work for a couple of days. We ate dinner last night at a seafood restaurant overlooking the Kyrenia harbor. The breeze off the water was refreshing, the food was good, and we watched the harbor come alive for the evening, candle lanterns lining the harbor, swallows darting this way and that, and small cruise boat masts reaching upwards to a cloudless sky. The harbor castle that was once owned by Richard the Lionheart, Guy de Lusignan (ex-king of Jerusalem from France), and various others. Now the harbor is pretty touristy: the sounds of men hawking a boat outing, or a restaurant menu predominate among the sounds of the harbor.

But Chloe hadn't been feeling well -- head cold that Haley had previously -- and this evening she felt okay and was able to eat a good meal. My last with the family before a 3 am departure for Ercan airport to fly to Prague. I'll return to Cyprus Friday, spending a night in Istanbul on the return. We've had to change my flight itinerary about 4 times to get me to Prague because of quibbling between the Northern Cyprus and Southern Cyprus. It's too complicated to summarize here in any meaningful way.

I've posted a couple more pictures to the photo gallery just now. I do have, by the way OnTMolly, a photo editor that I downloaded, to resize the photos. I hadn't shown the girls how to use it yet, though. Thanks for all your comments! Keep 'em coming! Love to all of you.
Peter