Istanbul

It is now 8.33pm, all is quiet in our little apartment. The girls are not quite asleep but are settling. Henry has fallen asleep on the couch. He has been busy trying to sort a rental car for the last 4 + hrs for our trip to Ephesus. Nothing is straight forward when you have a language barrier.

I went for a jog this morning at about 6.30am, everything was still asleep and was only starting to wake up as I made my return trip. Jogging is a great way of having a really good look around. The narrow cobbled streets are very similar and weave their way in lots of different directions so I had to keep looking for markers to retrace my steps.

We were made cups of tea by our Iranian neighbours today, a very nice gesture. We later had a nice chat with 7 of them below our apartment, there is 10 of them in their apartment; I don't know how they manage in such a small space. They are in Istanbul for 10 days, and have offered their phone no. if we are ever in Iran. They were very curious to know why we had three girls. I think I worked out that in Iran it is uncommon to have more then 2 children. They also wanted to know why Holly had blond hair...jeepers?! How do I explain that one?!

TOPKAPI PALACE...this was the home of a long progression of mad, sad and downright bad Ottomans who lived there between 1453 and 1839. It was used as a administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire and the residence of the Sultans for 380 years.

We had arrived before the opening time of 9am to avoid cues and managed to buy the girls a bread ring to chew on, it was hot today (a different heat to Thailand), Sophia was really struggling today, I don't think the time changes have helped. We had some time together early evening and she has bounced back a bit. Julia and Holly play well together and she is left out a bit which I think is also part of the problem...mmmm always something to work on.

The Imperial gate, treasure room, underdomes, weapons, sultans costumes, turkish baths, islamic relics and the harem were very interesting! The views of Istanbul were breath taking which Henry and I really enjoyed, sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe where we are!!

As we left the palace there were people along the streets selling things, Henry keeps saying "don't talk to them". Sometimes I wonder if I have a sign on me that reads soft touch. I am often pushing Holly in the stroller and they start by chatting to her and then have me cornered...I had to laugh today as one young man was selling those spiral spinning objects that make nice pictures with colourful pens etc, he wanted 15 l, I wasn't  that interested from the start, but by the time we had moved more then 30m away he had dropped to 3 l. He obviously really wanted the sell.

We strolled the streets and again we were amazed to be in this place which is soo different to our country. At one point we walked street after street that only sold shoes, they have every different sort that you could ever imagine. They had piles outside their shops but you weren't allowed to go into their stores, we couldn't work out the reasoning behind that?! Further along they had stores that just had the heels for high heel shoes...everything is different here!!

We were pleased to arrive back to our air conditioned room and started to relax when the apartment host asked us to vacate so they could carry out a building inspection...he offered to take us out, take us anywhere we wanted to go. I said it wouldn't be a problem and that we would go to the park across the street for a play. I quickly grabbed our valuables. He insisted on buying us an ice block, so that is what we did. I then found myself 2mins later walking the streets with this Turkish guy and my girls. Henry had gone to look into rental cars. We got quite a bit of attention in the supermarket as the apartment host could interpret the questions for me.

Everyday there is something new to experience here. I think our time here will go very fast. We will just have to carefully manage how tired everyone is. I have a washing machine here but no real line, I've had to make one today. Cooking is also a bit limited, as all I have is two stove top rings! No microwave, no oven!!

Slow day tomorrow... goodnight.

p.s will add some pics soon