having fun in London & arriving in Istanbul

well, um, we made it! Alex & I left Christmas night around 9pm EST, touched down 9am GMT, and procedeed to explore London during our short layover. Everything was either too expensive (Westminster Abbey) or closed (the British Museum) or too far away for us to reach (Mornington Crescent Underground Station), so mostly we ended up wandering around and then having an Old Peculier ale, which was grand if I may say so myself.

After that, we flew to Istanbul and then spent 15 minutes trying to find a real pay phone. We then spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to operate it (it was a credit card machine with a computer screen giving you instructions... in Turkish. 10 of the 15 minutes were spent figuring out how to press the "L" button to get the instructions in English.) We then came to an apartment here at Bilgis University, where our friend Paul made a friend on couchsurfing.com to find us a place. We're mostly hanging out with expats who teach here at the university so far, meaning that Alex is as pleased as punch (as this is pretty much exactly what he wants to do when he's all grown up, only probably involving a little more interaction with Turks and less with just other exapts.) I'm having fun, too, although when I go to meet this sweet luthier who makes guitars and fidlles out of table legs and the like I imagine I'll probably be having more fun. Pictures, terrible video, and more are forthcoming-- looks like we'll have pretty reliable internet while we're here in Istanbul anyway.

And I feel like mentioning that right now, at 3:42AM here, it's 8:42PM back home. And 7:42PM somewhere else, somewhere that I can't get out of my mind on today of all days. And that's all I'll say about that, although I guess you can praying for me about that if you'd like.