Tue 10/03/09 16:12

So I showed up at 10 Istanbul time. It’s dark out so I haven’t really gotten a sense of what the city looks like. I did go by some beautiful mosques, and some really fantastic looking forts. Other than that though I haven’t seen too much. I can’t wait to actually go out exploring tomorrow morning. One of the first things I’m going to do is find somewhere to buy a jacket. It’s cold here. I mean, what’s up with that? When I say cold, it’s like 7 degrees celsius which means it’s the coldest weather I’ve been in since early 2007.

The flight here was pretty good, it wasn’t full and I flew with Emirates, which is, in my opinion the best airline there is. It has the best service, best food, and for the most part the best people. I mentioned in the earlier post about how empty the airport was, and it made for kind of a strange flight. They opened the gate early, allowed us to board early, it was almost like no rules applied. Kind of nice. :) When I arrived in Istanbul I almost was dreading the process of getting my visa. I remember what it was like going to Thailand, or rather what some people had to go through. It was a long, painfully slow process of filling out forms and waiting in huge lines. So I was really dreading the whole process. When I got to the visa area in the airport tonight though the whole thing lasted about minutes, and about 4.5 of those were waiting in line. The actual process of getting a visa was look at my passport, place a sticker on a page, and take $20, literally 30 seconds. Very nice:)

Wish I had some photos to post, but not until tomorrow I guess.