Istanbul final days

On theTuesday morning Kevin and Gill left us to go home.

What a great weekend we had had, I had forgotten how much I loved my bro !!, we will see them again when we go thro London in February on the way home to Calgary. The following day we did the tourist thing lining up to go to the blue mosque to find there was another line we went into further mile long, then I was approached by what I thought was a guide , 50 euro and we will by pass the line up , I payed him the 50 and he said follow me , we then proceeded to walk tothe front of the line, I would have been embarrassed if it had not happened so quick, luckily nobody grabbed hold and said “ eh !! Where are you going “ , it was worth the 50 , most probably saved us an hour. The funny thing was all’s he wanted to talk about was the fact that his father owned a carpet shop and he could get us a good deal.

But the final deal of the day topped that as we where finally walking away way from the Bazaar area, this guy selling spices called me over ,asked where we were from (most probably because we looked like the Griswalds), I told him Canada, he asked was this my family ,I answered yes, he said “ I will offer you 10 camels each for your two daughters I haggled that I did not think this was enough, He then looked at. JEN AND LEIGH ANNE a little bit closer and said “ I WILL HAVE TO DROP THAT OFFER , ALTHOUGH THEY ARE VERY PRETTeY THEY ARE DAMAGED ,THEY HAVE COLOURING IN THEIR HAIR , I CAN GIVE YOU 9 CAMELS EACH. Needless to say the girls were not interested. What was I going to do with 18 camel anyway ??

After the mosque and the camel dealing we went on a ferry ride 2 hours down the Bosphorus river , this cost 3 dollar each , which I found amazing for such a long ride,reminded me a bit of my childhood and FERRY ACROSS THE MERSEY , during the trip nightfall fell up us and it was quite the contrast seeing. The skyline at night so we got a great view of Istanbul at night.

That evening we were invited to L’events party at his apartment, it was held as he had just become the ambassador to Johnny Walker Black Label. What a blast , he had cleared his apartment and had it decked out as a night club , 7 piece band with a singer whose name I cannot pronounce but he was. The equivalent of our own. Lenard Cohen , 150 guests and Johnny walker black flowing all night , cocktail specialist flown in from Greece. What a great way to spend our second to last night in Istanbul, .

Overall, a great place to visit, meals and drinks very expensive , very hospitable, but I would suggest 5 days is sufficient to see what you need to see .

Meeting up with Kevin and Gill and my Girls made this very special time , never to be forgotten.

From here Trish and I are off to Murcia for 3 days , to meet Hilton and Anita Rosalyne’s mum and dad to get the lay of the land and the keys for Nicks Condo where will be staying in Murcia mid November later in the trip.

see you later

m