Istanbul - Turkey

I have just returned from 3 days in Istanbul, my first time in Turkey and hopefully not my last. This was afterall a business trip and I flew out on Monday and returned this afternoon after only 3 hours sleep, so could not keep awake on the plane and train home. Let me digress for a moment and tell you about my dream on the plane. I was drifting in and out of sleep as soon as I sat in my seat. I had to get the early plane back to Zurich and that meant leaving the hotel in the main city at 05:30am. But as I was out the night before and then watched the Arsenal and Juventus game, which was of course an excellent result for the Gunners, I only had 3 hours sleep, so this must have been a late recording of the game being on so late. So I nodded off, the type of sleep that as soon as you close your eyes you are away in Dream World and nothing else disturbes you, besides your nodding head and the airstewardess asking if you want breakfast. But besides that I was out cold, and I hope not snoreing, but dreaming one of those strange, bizzare perplexed dreams. I was inside this long narrow corridor, like in a hotel, with lots of closed doors and the only exit was right down the far end. So I remember I was running down towards the end, which wasn't really the end, as once you got there you had to turn towards the right and sort of double back on yourself down another long coridor with more closed doors. I thought for a moment do I carry on to the end of this passage and end up in another, or do I open one of the doors and see where this takes me. But as I got to this thought the airstewardess was asking me if I wanted breakfast. So I never actually solved the puzzle, but within that split second of waking up, I thought I was back in my hotel bed and this was the wake up call I had asked for and I was now going to have to make my way to the airport. Very strange, but it always amazes me how quick you can get into what apears to be a deep sleep. Don't ask me the meaning of this dream, maybe its simple, then again maybe not! So Istanbul, what do you want to know? Well its a very busy thriving city, full of life and diversity, both with the people and buildings. You can be in a wonderful 4 star hotel, yet beside you can be a derelict building. These pictures were taken near my hotel 'The Marmara Pera' which is beautiful. The good thing is I managed to negotiate a good price, which included breakfast and free WiFi, so was great. And it is only walking distance from the main shopping street, which was full of great restaurants. I was with my colleague Markus (from finland) and we had a great time, the food, the service and the people all added to an enjoyable time. As this was business I did not get time to go site seeing, so will leave that for my next visit. BTW, see if you can spot the satellite dish!!