Princes and Sultan's Ghosts

Sometimes Turkey makes so much sense. Charging only 2 lira ($1.80) to travel by boat for an hour and a half to an island where no one has cars, only bicycles and horse-drawn carriages, where kittens run amok and have scared off all the nasty squirrels. İt just makes sense.

Sometimes Turkey makes no sense. Writing in a book that Trotsky lived at an address that doesn't exist, refusing to post a sign to anything, charging 6 Lira for photo priveledges in a palace, even if your camera runs out of batteries after only a quarter of the tour (yes, this happened to your truly!). İt just doesn't make any sense.

Büyükada (the ''Big İsland''), one of the Princes' İslands was cute and nice and quiet - barely any yelling and NO cars or honking!! İt was like paradise. With horses running around everywhere eating out of garbages. And more cats than people, eating out of garbages. And dogs that follow you around for an hour before they forget and follow someone else. We took a horse-drawn carriage tour for 22 lira ($20.00) and for those who don't know, this is about a quarter what tourists pay in Victoria. İ guess İstanbul isn't the only city that takes advantage of foreigners! Will wouldn't agree to rent a tandem bike with me. He's no fun sometimes.

Today we visited the Dolmabahçe Palace, where Attiturk lived and died. İt was built by Sultan Something in the 1800s, so it is newer by about 400 years than the Topkapı Palace, the other one we visited, but this one was so much more impressive! İ think because it still is set-up with the original furniture and carpets and paintings and gold tea sets and gold place settings, so one could really imagine life there. İ won't get into the camera fiasco, but you won't get a chance to see most of the palace, and especially not the main room and most interesting chandeliers. You'll just have to come to İstanbul for yourselves! Everyone tells us to go home to Canada and tell everyone to come to Turkey, so there you go. İ did it.

Gotta go - we've been here a while and only have so much money on us. Love and hugs!!