Sarcapho-guy

The archaelogical museum is between Topkapi Palace and Hagia Sofia.
Getting into the museum proved to be a bit of an adventure as we were directed to a rough cobblestone ramp that worked its way up to a set of doors that looked olf and little-used. Right after we labored to the top of the ramp we were tolf apologetically that the doors weren't working. Dick managed the stairs up the main entrance and in we went.

Really, the museum's appeal depends on your attitude toward sarcaphogi.
I was intrigued, Dick .... Less so.

The heart of the museum is a set of sarcaphogi excavated in Sidon (Phonoecia) that were transported to Istanbul. The oldest are very Egyptian-style in blackish granite, the outer case the shape of a king with short beard.
The highlight of this part of the museum was the "Alexander Sarcaphogus" which is a rectangular casing in marble, the sides a sculpted bas relief of a battle. It must have been very colorful back in the day: a bit of color was left in some places and nearby was a wood model that suggested how vibrant and poly-chromatic it was.

The level below was full of artifacts from Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods.
Some spectacular Nicean stone pulpits told me that it did not take more than a few centuries for Catholic churches to gain their grandeur.
I also did not realize that Eastern Christianity went thru its own period where graven images were forbidden and some work of prior centuries was marred. I always thought of icons when I thought of Orthodox Christianity.
Apparently the "iconoclastic" period was started by a religious sentiment that people were worshipping the icons, not God. The similarity to Islamic belief is striking.

Saturday, our first full day in Istanbul.

Nine hours sitting on a plane. Ugh! I hate flying. Thank God we are flying home on business class. Turkish Air's interior configuration is a little roomier than domestic lines, but not a lot. Slept in til about 11AM and had a late break fast in the hotel.

The hotel is small as is the room but not uncomfortable. The people are very pleasant. But the wonderful thing is the shower. It is like standing under a fire hose or waterfall. I could have stayed there all day.

We decided to have an easy day of it and went to the large park surrounding the Topkapi Palace. Nice park. It being Saturday there was a good crowd of people strolling. Jim pushed me in my wheelchair throughout. God bless him.

We ended up in a tea garden atop a bluff under the Topkapi palace and overlooking where the Golden Horn meets the Bospherus. The traffic in the water was impressive. Ferries connecting the Asian side to the European side were everywhere, large Cargo ships going north to Black Sea ports. and lots of private boats as well.

Turkish Tea: It is presented in a little samovar like contraption rather like a small teapot nested atop a larger one. The larger underpot contains boiling water. (see photo) The concentrated tea, I swear it is boiled, is very bitter and after pouring

some in your glass you then dilute it with the water in the lower post. It is still bitter and requires lots of sugar, which I would normally never put in my tea. I understand now why in Russian novels people hold sugar cubes between their teeth as they drink their tea.

There were storks nesting in the tree tops. Lots of them. I've never seen anything like this before and it was fascinating. The trees are mostly a form of Sycamore but thinner and taller than those we have in the US.

Dinner in the hotel and early to bed. This is rather strenuous for me.

Getting there

There was much to arrange for this trip, so it is worth noting how much our favorite travel site, tripadvisor.com, was helpful in giving insights and useful information. Ultimately, this site helped us with:

• Istanbul hotel (Sirkeci Konak)
• transport from the Ataturk airport and renting a van/driver for a Monday adventure (Backpackers)
• Cooking class Tuesday morning (Cooking a La Turka)
• roll-our-own tour from Port Said via "Marvelous Egypt"
• Most importantly, helping us settle on use of a transport chair for Dick (much worry and differing reports re: whether the cobblestone and amount of uneven sidewalks would make it futile

There was also much to consider in scheduling, but here Jim made a complete bungle.
AT&T managers were advised last year to take care arranging travel after April due to potential for strikes.
At first we'd decided we needed to complete travel by March 31.
There was also our friend Andy's 50th birthday on April 1.
There was also Easter ... But when was Easter??
First bungle ... Off to the internet to search. Got bad information, thought Easter was Apr 15.
Out travel agent found a Costa cruise to Venice in March (nice, but not as "Eastern Mediterranean" as Dick wanted) and this Silversea cruise ending Apr 6.
The Silversea itinerary was much closer to what we wanted, and it would get us home just before the AT&T "travel at your risk" period started. Hmm. No problem with an April 15 Easter also.

Alas what about Andy?? ummm we forgot!!!!

And plunked down our money. And Easter is April 8??????
But the handbell choir is playing on Easter!

Fortunately Andy is forgiving! And young Andrew from bell choir's mom, Jennifer, agreed to direct the handbells and saved me from leaving the crew high and dry. (Thanks Jennifer!)

A welcome bit of news in December! Our pals Bill and Mark from Laguna Beach, CA decided to join us. After a bit of searching they decided they'd condescend to stay at our hotel in Istanbul, even though it fell a bit below their exacting standards. Also nice: they have a friend, Demet, who they met on a Silversea cruise a few years ago. Demet would be in town and offered to show us around a bit, so off to get a van/driver for the day before our cruise starts.

Next big decision: how to get to the pyramids in Egypt?
And could Dick manage ok with transport chair?
the cruise excursion called for too long a day and were discouraging about a transport chair, so thank you tripadvisor.com and Marvelous Egypt!

And what about mobility assistance? We finally settled on a Nova 330 collapsible transport chair with (very important) 12 inch wheels. The larger wheels will make it easier to deal with cobblestone which we knew would be a challenge in Istanbul. I will sing an ode to our Nova in a future post.

(side note: as i type this while Dick snoozes, the call to prayer is being sung. Marvelous!)

We had much to arrange before the trip.

• My running pal Astrid's sister Liisu agreed to stay at the house and tend to the critters but (gulp) there was much cleaning and picking up to be done!
• Silversea is a bit shi-shi and has a strong dress code, and I was (unlike me completely!) obsessing over this, so with Scott's advice, off to Nordstrom to buy a new blazer, slacks and a couple shirts so that I'd be fashionably attired (well, fashionable for me, anyway). Of course, nothing fits perfectly, so several trips to have adjustments made.
• Nellie (14 years and slowing down) and Dick both had a few extra health challenges to be managed. Drugs to be bought and shipped.
• Our regular UPS driver hurt himself, and the replacement driver botched delivery on several important items, so there were important shipments expected, missed and tracked/reworked.
• AT&T's (failed) $4-billion bet on T-mobile has had its impact on our organization's budget, and we were busily dug in with a complete replan of our 2012 efforts.

Although I started packing 2 weeks before and started sacrificing sleep starting Monday of our last week, by Wednesday I was in quite the panic that we weren't going to make it or would leave house and work a shambles. Only the concern of friends and anticipation of the trip kept me sane, and with one hour of sleep Thursday night, sudden inspiration hit and I whipped through a rather long to-do list (most impressive accomplishment: writing my 2012 performance objectives - a tedious and mind-numbing task usually even at my best - in a surprisingly short time). On Friday morning, Dick and I made it to work at the planned time and while he enjoyed a spring mornimg on the 2nd fl porch at work, I glugged coffee and did my best song and dance presenting to our customers at a noon meeting.

The meeting finished, and now it was time to catch the limo. Fortunately, Morris limo was right on time, and with my boss and fellow managers waving us on, off to JFK were we.

Our driver was from Morocco and was wonderful to chat with. We talked international affairs, US politics and culture the entire trip out. He was a pretty savvy guy as he knew just how to flatter us: "are you journalists? You know so much about international news!"
Well of course he got a good tip from us for that! (And we had a good laugh at ourselves later, thank you NPR and BBC world news!)

Our past travel where we arranged for use of a wheelchair at the airport for Dick had spoiled us and gotten us accustomed to being completely taken care of. Traveling with your own chair makes things a little different, we discovered. The first omen for how things would be came the moment we arrived at JFK, and no one was there to help me get our bags and Dick from the street to the check-in counter. So i did my best pack mule imitation and managed it.

Second omen: instead of taking our checkins the agent told me I had to lug everuthing to a dropoff area. More pack mule'ing!

Once rid of the bags and thru security (again, with no help at all from staff), we went off to find a beer and nachos.

Getting onto our Turkish air flight, we were able to get check the collapsed chair, and down the 777 we walked to our seats, which to our delight were not-quite-bulkhead-but-were-first-in-row for our section. Dick was pretty beat, but I of course *must* get my share of movies while in flight, and I was happy to start off with "Big Fish", that Tim Burton movie with Ewan Macgregor at his most charming, doing a passable southern accent. Fun movie if you can appreciate whimsy (good benchmark: if you liked "Joe vs. the Volcano", you'll like this one).

Then a relatively recent movie, "Another Earth", an indie drama, also very well done. From the trailer, I'd sort of thought the whole "Another Earth" idea itself was sort of corny, but the movie is very clever in how it uses the device in telling the story, so if one gets past obvious questions like "why aren't the tides completely screwed up by the arrival of another planet so close to ours!", I think you'd find the "human story" to be very powerful and the acting is superb. Great unexpected ending too that doesn't wrap everything up neatly.

The flight was uneventful, and was about 9 hours all told. Backpackers was there to get us, and while our driver wasn't chatty, he certainly did yeoman's work at the very end weaving us thru the old city streets and backed up traffic to get us to our hotel.

I'd arranged an early check-in with the hotel, and while we had tea and OJ, they got our room ready. The elevator of the hotel was about 2 ft by 2 ft (OK I exaggerate, it was 3 ft x 3 ft - just enough room for Dick in his chair and me to literally squeeze in). Our room, while a bit small (and missing a chest of drawers alas), is comfortable, and so we very gratefully had a 3 hour nap. We were in Turkey!

Istanbul (was Constantinople now it's Istanbul ...)

Thanks to our friend Cleo (via Jill, Vickie, Rich and Clay), that little ditty has been an earworm in our brains and now at long last we are here!

Our itinerary on this adventure:

Mar 24 - Mar 27: Istanbul

Mar 27 board Silversea Silver Wind

Mar 28 Cannakale (Troy)

Mar 29 Izmir/Ephesus

Mar 30 Rhodes, Greece

Mar 31 day at sea

Apr 1 Haifa, Israel

Apr 2 Ashdod (Jerusalem)

Apr 3 Port Said, Egypt

Apr 4 Alexandria (Egypt)

Apr 5 day at sea

Apr 6 Athens Greece