Tour of Turkey

Day 16:  Istanbul

So, we visited my mother's half-sister and all of her family came out to meet us.  They were all lovely and it's so nice to have found more family, even later in life.  We spent the day and night in Manisa with them, then turned our car in, took a quick flight back to Istanbul, and decided to leave our large suitcase in the left baggage center at the airport.  This way we wouldn't have to lug it around all over Istanbul for just one night.  We packed our little suitcase and headed off.

Our last day in Istanbul (yesterday) was really spent shopping, I bought the lamps I wanted for my kitchen, Jason bought the spices he wanted, Jade bought herself a scarf, and we picked up a few souvenirs.  We also hit the Suleyman Mosque, which we missed our first time here in Istanbul.  It was so beautiful, we thought it was better than the Blue Mosque.

We spent our last night back in Taksim on Istiklal Street and had a light dinner and hit a few bars.  It was fun, but Jason was tired, so hit the sack.  Today we will be checking out and may take a tour of the Bosporus or try one last time to get into Dolmabahce Palace before we fly home.  This was our longest vacation and we have both been thinking about work for the last few days, even Jade has been making plans with friends and talking about going to the pool, so it's definitely time to come home.  See you State-side.