The post I've been promising...

We left for the Airport on Sunday afternoon last week around 1:30.  We got our boarding passes, checked our luggage (thank goodness!) and started for security.  We went through security really quickly, and then got to ride the underground tram-ish thing to reach our boarding deck.  The flight was to Athens, Greece, and was supposed to take around 11 hours.  Eulgh.... none of us slept more than an hour.  :-)  I learned that you can hang out in the back of the plane with the flight attendants and eat!  We were up and about in between movies (which was basically all night) and there was a fantastic movie ("Leap Year") that played with Amy Adams in it.  We got to Athens around 10 in the morning, and put our carry-ons in a secure keeping place while we gallivanted around the airport.  We couldn't actually leave the airport because our connecting flight to Istanbul left in 2 hours.  We ate lunch at the airport and also spent some time in the airport museum (which was very interesting), so much that we had to run through the airport after picking up our bags so we wouldn't miss our flight!  It was close. and we got there just in time to get a good spot in line, and then rode out to the plane in a bus-ish thing.  The lunch on the plane was AMAZING!  We had already had lunch, so we weren't that hungry, but the "airplane food" was DEFINITELY not airplane food!  The flight was only about 45 minutes, and then we were in Turkey on Monday afternoon!  We went to get a Visa (for me) and then went through passport control.  Then, downstairs to pick up our baggage, and out to find our taksi-bus.  On the way out of the airport, we stopped to buy a cell-phone, and two Turkish/ European(?) plans for while we're here so the girls (Melis and I) and Aunt Sureyya both can get in touch with each other, plus Aunt Sureyya can now get in touch with her family.  It was raining in Turkey!  Apparently, it never rains in the summer, especially in June, and everyone was asking us and telling us about it!  We were like, "Yes, we see, it IS raining!" ;-)  We arrived at the apartment and walked up three flights of very small, very curly stairs to get to our flat.  Carrying 50 pound bags while doing this is not necessarily easy or fun, but the driver of the bus helped with the really big ones, so Melis and I only had a couple of bags a piece, plus the carry-ons, and then the lady we were renting from took pity on our huffing and puffing and made us cold lemonade!  :-)  That night, we stayed up as long as we could to handle jet lag, and then pretty much passed out.  

         The next day, it was still raining. Tuesday.  We got up, had some breakfast, and Meltem (Aunt Sureyya's Niece) came and picked us up at our apartment to show us her new Studio of the Arts.  She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dance, and teaches dance, exercise classes, culinary arts, guitar, and piano.  The new studio is her second one, and she is an Interior Designer by education, so it's beautiful.  Then we went and ate lunch (again, amazing!), and then to an amazing bakery, Konak, the BEST place in Istanbul (so I'm told, and so I've tasted) for éclairs.  After that, Meltem took us to the Akbank (one of the Turkish banks) so Aunt Sureyya could set up an account.  Then we took a taxi home, and went back out to the grocery store right up the street from us (they have grocery stores within walking distance of EVERY place here), called Migros, and bought food, and then stopped by a food place right next door that we are now calling "the amazing doma lady", a family business that apparently makes the best dolma Aunt Sureyya (and Melis and I, of course) have ever tasted!  Dolma is rice, seasoning, sometimes pine nuts, all wrapped up in delicious grape leaves soaked in some sort of seasoned liquid-y stuff that make the whole thing a pretty much crazy awesome experience!  We ate half a kilo of those things in the space of about 30 minutes - and that was trying to save some for the next day!  (that effort was a fail, by the way!)  At any rate, that day was done, and we pretty much crashed again.  The next day was also supposed to be rainy, so we planned to do indoor stuff.  Will finish later!  We're out, and my computer is almost out of battery, so... farewell until next time (tonight, maybe?)!  Love you all!

              ~Bekah