On Sunday morning we took the bus back to Izmir for a short visit with Gul and Metin, to do some chores, and to pick up our bikes. We had planned to stay until Wednesday night, but Metin checked for us and discovered that all the buses to Goreme in Cappadocia were full starting Wednesday…

We met our Servas host, Omer, after he finished work on Friday. We had planned to meet at the “Peace and Friendship” statue outside of the HSBC building where he works, but a security guard with machine gun was clear that we weren’t to wait there, so we moved to the sidewalk nearby. Fortunately Omer…

Today dawned cold and wet. It was raining and the temperature was around 10-12 degrees. It was not really suitable for tromping around the Topkapi Palace, so we decided to leave that until tomorrow with hopefully better weather, and do some chores today. Since we did not like our motel, we decided to move to…

Becky has had this foolish song going through her head since we planned our trip to Istanbul (lyrics from the They Might Be Giants version): Istanbul was Constantinople Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night We began the day with a trip to…

Our first long-distance trip on a bus in Turkey was remarkably painless, mainly thanks to Mehmet, who was going to Istanbul for a job interview. We were able to tag along with him, which made navigating the ticket purchase, shuttle bus, and transfer very easy. Mobile phones are banned on long-distance busses in Turkey, which…

Saturday We decided to make a quick stop at the carpet / souvenir store prior to taking the bus back to Izmir. We really enjoyed our carpet lesson and felt that Mehmet (2), Ali, and Harry have been very honest so we feel comfortable with making purchases from them. Our brief stop turned into two…

We actually got moving relatively early on Thursday, but did not leave for the bus until 10 am. Mehmet made the process immeasurably easier. First he guided us to the bus station, then talked to the various people to figure out which bus we needed and the logistics with our bikes. There are many Dolmus…