Turkish breakfast. Yummm. There’s something about eating cucumbers, olives, cheeses and good bread first thing in the morning. But, really, nescafe????? Oh, and Tang for the juice. I miss Ohori’s Kenyan! Laird’s off to the money machine — there’s something about foreign money that makes spending it so much easier — it’s not real after all, doesn’t look like anything you had to work hard for. Well, until you get home and get the credit card bill and bank statement and realize you have to get a second job. I wonder if I could still waitress?
The day is beautiful outside, seagulls calling in the air. Tulips still blooming (we just missed the Istanbul tulip festival) and pansies and those flowers that look like pansies but don’t have the center colors like pansies. No, not Johnny Jump Ups. At Topkapi the tulips are, I believe, Ottoman tulips — with the very pointed petals. Anyway, that’s what we’re going to know them as from now on. Great trees at Topkapi, too. A couple of them looked like they could have been 1,000 years old. One tree was one type of evergreen, with one branch of cypress sticking up. I assume some kind of natural accident because what’s the point of grafting one branch?
We’re off to yacht on the Bosporus! OK, it won’t be a yacht, but I can pretend. jm
lairdandjonelle 
I thought Turkish coffee would be a thickish brew like espresso only more so. Maybe they don’t think Americans can handle the real deal? Very strange.