FIrst impressions

Often times first impressions can be right and other times wrong.  My first impression of the Swiss was not a favorable one; I had a lay over in Zurich and the people I had contact with there were rude and unfriendly and very anti-American.  The Turks on the other hand have been wonderful.  It sure was great getting off the plane in Istanbul have having someone meet me and drive me to the hotel.  Unfortunately, I got in too late to go to a traditional Turkish bath.  I understand from those who did go it was wonderful. We meet at 6pm attend a dinner cruise on the Bosporus.   This was the first opportunity I had to meet my fellow travelers and they are a great group of folks. There were additional guests on the cruise, including the President of Koc University and his wife.  The cruise was superb and cruising on the Bosporus was an adventure.  I am gong to enjoy the next week.  The good news is that we are not due to leave until 10am tomorrow morning.  One quote from the night's discussion:  America is a one sentence country we never get to the second sentence.


It is day 2 now and I am exhausted.  Even thought we did not leave until 10am we did not get back until 10:45pm  We first went to the Topkapi Palace and spent several hours touring it.  We then had lunch at a restaurant on the Palace grounds.  After that we went to the Blue Mosque.  All in all we walked over 5 miles and the legs feel it.  We then stopped by the Hippodrome.  We were supposed to go back to the hotel and clean up before we went to dinner but we were running late so went directly to Koc University.  The family who has funded the University is connected with Ford and Apple so they have a large foundation of money to spend.  It is a relatively new University but very impressive. They had the dinner set up around the swimming pool and it was delicious.  It was a typical Turkish meal with lots of wine and Ratki.  They also had traditional music and dance.

Istanbul is a city of 15 million and believe me they are all out on the street at all hours of the day.  Traffic is horrendous.  I was going to post pictures but I left my camera at the university.  They are going to try to get it back for me.  I sure hope so as there are many pictures on it from this trip and from last week.

More later.  Tomorrow we leave at 8:15am