Our trip to Ireland started out foggy and ended in Paris. With no stops in Dublin in between.

We got up early early in the morning to avoid rush hour traffic on our way to the airport and then battled some intense fog for an hour and a half on our drive to the airport. After we got to the airport, checked in, and sat for a long time, they announced that the flight to Dublin was canceled and to please collect our baggage and report to the ticket desk. Booooo.

As we stood in line with a bajillion other annoyed people, we weighed our options. "Well, maybe we'll get on a flight to Dublin later today. Or maybe not... there are a lot of people here"... "We could just go home, I guess"..."Well, we're only 2 and a half hours from Paris..."

And so Paris it was. They offered us a 10 p.m. flight to Dublin, but it was 10 a.m. when this took place, and the airport was seriously tiny. We didn't like the prospect of killing time by visiting the snack bar and newsstand 100 times, so we took a refund and hopped back in our car.

We stayed for only one night in Paris, but in a ritzy hotel with bonbons on the pillow and a fancy shower and a double bed that was NOT two twin beds pushed together! We did all our favorite things - drank wine, ate crêpes, ate baguettes, ate some other stuff, and wandered around. It was not what we had planned for the weekend, but you can never go wrong going to Paris. Unless you don't like Paris, in which case you might be dead to me.

So, no Dublin. No Shannon. No Cliffs of Moher. No pubs. No Guinness. But rest assured, there will be a trip to Ireland at some point. We have passes to the Guinness Storehouse that are good for a year and you better believe we're going to use them.

So, Istanbul. Or Constantinople. Byzantium if you're going way back.

We left for our trip early Tuesday morning, and after 3 and half hours in traffic, a few hours of delay in the airport because of fog:
and a 3 hour plane ride, we arrived in what would have been sunny Istanbul had we arrived at our original estimated time of 3:30 p.m. For us, however, it was dark out and we didn't get to see much on our shuttle from the airport to the hotel.

Our hotel, by the way, was a major disappointment. Our room overlooked a noisy cafe, and the alleged rooftop terrace? Not actually on the roof of our building. We had to walk to a different hotel owned by the same people. And then the terrace there left a little to be desired. Not like the very pretty pictures on their website. Our room ws clean though, and breakfast was good, and they had a computer where we could check e-mail, so it wasn't completely awful.

The first morning we were there, we set out and saw the sights. We hit the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia first, because they were just a few minutes from our hotel. Pretty cool. Big mosques. A nice change from all the big cathedrals all over the rest of Europe. I think our favorite part of the Blue Mosque was having to remove our shoes and walking inside the quiet, cool building with the plush carpet squishing beneath our toes. I could really pray there. You know, if I were muslim.




Next we hit the Grand Bazaar, built in the 15th century and a definite tourist trap. It was still fun though. We browsed, Ben bargained with shopkeepers, we wandered, we rested at a cafe, we bought a few more things. It was great. And really big. If you ever go, take a map or leave a trail of breadcrumbs or something. Seriously.




Another great place for buying stuff was the Egyptian Bazaar, or Spice Bazaar as everyone calls it since it's not so much Egyptian in any way. I thought the Spice Bazaar was way better than the Grand Bazaar because it was full of FOOD! There were mounds of colorful spices, teas, nuts, dried fruits, candy... it was fantastic.



We also spent time hanging out on the Galata Bridge, which connects the European part of the city to the Asian part AND has a bunch of restaurants tucked underneath it. It's a prime boat watching location and it's much quieter than a lot of other parts of the city. We took a few breaks there to just sit and have a beer and watch people and boats and stuff. Very nice.




One evening we took a ferry ride to Kadakoy, which was about 20 minutes away by boat. We went so we could enjoy the view of Istanbul at night from the water, and we weren't disappointed. But the most eventful part of the mini-journey was when we were wandering around Kadakoy before heading back. We had found an area with benches that was right on the water and we were just sitting and watching, when all of the sudden Ben jumped and looked behind us. There was a stray dog, licking Ben's arm. We weren't too surprised because there were stray dogs everywhere, probably about 10-20 just lounging around this particular area. But this one came up and licked Ben. We said hello and informed him we were not going to feed him. He came and hopped up on the bench with me and licked my face. We named him Mustafa. We tried not to encourage him because, as much as we love dogs, this one wasn't coming home with us. Mustafa, however, had other plans. We got up from our bench and started walking away and Mustafa ran up and trotted along next to us. Cute, huh? And then we came to other people walking toward us and the benches. Mustafa valiantly protected us by running up to each person and barking, guarding us from every passerby. We were slightly amused, although the people getting "attacked" by a stray dog didn't really see the humor in it. Luckily, after a while Mustafa figured that we really meant it when we said we weren't going to feed him or take him home and he went back to hang out with the other dogs.


The rest of our time in Istanbul we wandered, and ate. And ate, and wandered. The food was great. The wandering was tiring.

Next up, Ireland. We leave tomorrow and stay our first night in Dublin. That's all we have planned, so wish us luck!

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I started working in September and spent my spare time swearing at French textbooks and program coordinators, and Ben is deathly scared of blogging.

Coming soon (hopefully tomorrow), tales of our trip to Istanbul last week and how we conquered the city. And next week, our Irish road trip (we leave on Thursday!).