Turkey Adventure
February 2001

We left Tucson for a three and a half hour plane flight to Chicago, then a 10 hour flight to Istanbul.  The Turkish Airline plane was less than half full, so lots of room to stretch out.  The return flight from Istanbul was 11 hours and even less people on the plane.  If one is into movies, three were shown each way - a total of six different movies.

On arrival in Istanbul we were the only ones picked up at the airport.  We were further surprised when we learned that only 7 people were on the tour plus the tour guide, bus driver and his assistant.  It was a great group of people - a couple from the Denver area, a lady from Perth, Australia (in Istanbul for her grandson's circumcision) and a grandfather-granddaughter team from Sidney, Australia. 

During our bus rides, from city to city, our tour guide gave talks on religion (mostly Muslim which is 99% of Turkey), ancient ruins most of which were from the New Testament, education, politics, medicine, work (almost 20% unemployment), money (10-20% inflation per year), customs, language, military service, and various other topics.