Istanbul

Now, maybe you'll recall that our Istanbul excursion was supposed to be over 2 days. Remember "Best of Istanbul without lunch over two days." It was supposed to be 4.5 hours. We couldn't figure out whether that was 4.5 hours total or 4.5 hours each day. Nobody on ship could answer our question either. As it turns out, Day 1 we met about 2:00 in one of the lounges to board our coach. We returned about 6:30...too late for dinner in the dining room. We were instructed to be on the bus again the next morning at 7:00. On the bus! That meant a 5:30 wake up and a 6:30 room departure! And we weren't to return until 3:00! Does that sound like 4.5 hours or even 9 hours!?! We weren't about to get up at 5:30 to see more of Turkey.

Can you tell that I'm still a little miffed about this? But there were good things about our stop in Istanbul. First, we experienced the best perk of being Captain's Club members. We were invited to a private cocktail party, on the ships heli-pad, as we sailed through the Bosporus. "What is the Bosporus?", you ask. (I don't really know exactly...ask Josh next time you see him.) Istanbul sits on 2 continents...Europe and Asia. The Bosporus is the channel of water that you sail through to get to Istanbul. So from our vantage point on the heli-pad, we could see Europe and Asia. While sipping champagne. Free champagne. How frikin' cool is that?

So would you like to see pics?

I thought so.




Beautiful man.


Beautiful man with li'l ol' me.


We could see the bridge from our viewing place on the helipad.



Beautiful man.







Beautiful mosaics,





Care to guess? You got it...the Blue Mosque. Wonder where they got that name?



Beautiful tile work in the ceiling.


Worshipers in the Blue Mosque.



This last pic is just because Josh was tickled by their crosswalk sign. See, the man is wearing suit and a hat.