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January 22, 2005
Last Communication from Turkey
Hi...We're in Istanbul now. Seymen and I are so sad. First of all, we miss his parents. They couldn't come with us to Istanbul tonight because they didn't want to leave EFE alone overnight...Sooo Seymen and I had to take the ferry today and his parents will drive here tomorrow. Last night we went out to buy tickets for the ferry today, and kept deciding to go later and later, so finally his parents said that we HAD to go today and they picked the time for us, and Seymen's dad went and got our ferry tickets for us this morning. I think at one point last night, we pushed it to 7pm. But instead we were on the 1:30 ferry to Istanbul.
We are staying in one of the nicest hotels on the Bosphorous. It's beautiful. We have two picture windows and a little porch over looking the Bosphorous. It's amazing...And the shower is the coolest thing ever. It has a spout from the ceiling directly above you, four sprayers that shoot out at you from the wall all at different heights so your entire body gets sprayed, and a hand held thing. It's the best shower I've ever taken.
When we arrived, we took a taksi (that's how they spell it) to the Otel Bebeck...then another taksi to the Grand Bazaar, but it was closed due to the holidays...so we did some shopping at the little vendors, and then walked to the Higha-Sofia (I have no idea how to spell that) and saw the Blue Mosque from a little distance away, and the Topkapi Palace...but they were all closed so we could only take pictures from the outside. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and sat out on our porch, then dinner at the hotel.
Right now I'm so stuffed. I have definitly gained so much weight on this trip. I have tried so many different foods here. I had a kiwi for the first time in my life, and really like it! And I tried and started liking the yogort too. There's too many things to name. You'll have to see my scrapbook when I'm done because basically all my pictures are of us eating food, or drinking tea. Oh yeah, I'm addicted to tea now too. I have at least 5 cups a day.
Anyway...I'm so sad right now. I almost cried when we said goodbye to his parents (and we are seeing them tomorrow morning at 10AM), and then again at dinner. Seymen seems so sad, and he doesn't want to leave. I can see how hard it is for him to leave and it just makes me want to cry. His parents were so happy yesterday when we decided not to take the first ferry so we could spend time with them...I almost cried for that too. And last night was packing night. Seymen's mom was packing his suitcase, and his dad was running around grabbing things for us to take. They gave us everything. I have their spare pillow cases, we have coffee, his mom was going to give me two towels but they wouldn't fit in my bag. She came into my room and goes: "So..the towels don't fit. What can we do?" (And she sat there thinking about how to make it work)...And they didn't have time to get us sheets and pillowcases (which is why I have their spare one) so they are going to send them....Meanwhile, Seymen was trying to do last minute fixes to their computers. It was just so sweet. His dog was getting nervouse for the past two days too. I think he knew that we were leaving. He would get so worried when we left the house and so excited when we came back. Poor guy...Seymen hugged and kissed him like five times on the way out the door. That almost made me cry too...
OK...I have to go now. I'm getting too sad...I'll write when I am back in the US :-((((( Unless I can convince Seymen by tomorrow that we should just stay here!!! ;-)
Posted by beth at January 22, 2005 03:33 PM