Istanbul -- On the streets.

Tuesday, April 20

Istanbul -- On the streets.

This morning we all made our way to the convention center the best sway we could - some walking, some by cab, and some by shuttle. We met up at registration around 8 am and debated about where to go for breakfast. Augie was growing restless, so we followed him to a coffee house down the street. Augie and I arrived first and ordered our breakfast, trying to communicate with a waiter and waitress who understood zero English. I pointed to Augie with one finger and indicated one coffee, and pointed to myself to indicate one tea. The waitress arrived with one coffee for each of us and one tea for me, just as Rhonda and Brian were arriving. So Brian took our extra coffee. Rhonda and Brian ordered their breakfast.

Within minutes, they delivered Augie’s club sandwich. The three of us sat and watched him eat as we waited for our own orders, while local after local came in, ordered, ate their breakfast, paid and left. Finally, Mary Ann, Jerry, the Hegaduses and the Hellmans all showed up and ordered their breakfast. Several of them ordered the same breakfast as me and I watched as they were all paraded past me while I sat and waited. Rhonda waited 45 minutes for them to deliver her bottled water. I really think they were having fun messing with the tourists.

After at least an hour, we finally all got our breakfasts and headed back to the convention center to catch the last part of the first session. There was a second session after, and then we all had a couple of hours to relax or have lunch beforethe trade show at 2 pm.

Augie took a walking tour of the area around the convention center and discovered that Istanbul is one of those places that "you can't get there from here." Thousands of years of building up and down hills have created a traffic and road monster. Looking for a park that was only about a mile away as the crow flies turned into an over 5 mile hike, uphill both ways -- literally. Streets turned on themselves, thousands of yards of buildings with no cross streets, 30 degree (really) sloped streets, it goes on and on. Feral cats and dogs everywhere. People everywhere. Traffic that would make LA blush in shame. But terrific views of the Bosphorus from the hill side whenever you could see between or over a building.

After taking 3 miles to get to the park that was one mile away, Augie ran into a wall that surrounded the park. Completely. And there was only one entrance, you guessed it, a half a mile away.

After a nice walk through the park to log into a geocache (geocache.com), he took the short cut, just an easy mile and a 3/4, to get back to the center that was only a mile away.

From two until around four p.m., we all made our way to the various vendors who were supporting our program. The highlight for us was meeting with the vendor from Iran. We are all very excited about the possibility of visiting Iran one day soon. We were told the Iranian people love Americans, and would love to have us come visit. If anyone is interested in joining us, let us know.

Augie and I hung around until after 3:30 when they had wine tasting and cuisine samples. Then we all headed back to our hotels for relaxation until the evening welcoming event held in a 1700 year old cistern. The buses picked us up at our hotel at 6:30 and took us to the event, where we were served a 4 course Turkish meal in this incredible venue and entertained by some of the local talent.

On the way back to our hotel, we all made plans to meet later in the morning to have breakfast together and make it to the conference at a later hour.