We're off on spring vacation...

The three of us are heading to the airport shortly to take a flight to Istandul and will be there until next Wednesday. I wanted us to go somewhere exotic for a vacation and Istanbul seemed like a natural destination. I visited Istanbul (along with much of the rest of Turkey) way back in 1993. It's a great place.

We will see some friends who left Prague last year to return to their native Turkey. I posted on their going away party here. Armin ran the Prague Hilton, and met President Bush when he stayed there while visiting Prague last June. His wife is Tuana and is a good friend of Kathy's.

Armin and Tuana have a son, Ares, who was in Noah's class last year and the two of them were best friends. While we are in Istanbul Noah is going to stay with them from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday morning - he is very excited to stay there and see his old (relatively speaking) friend. Of course, Noah being with them for a couple of days gives Kathy and I the opportunity to see some sites that we wouldn't be ablr to otherwise.

Istanbul is a very large city with 17 million people and we will be staying in the old historic section called Sultanahmet where the most popular tourist attractions are. The hotel terrace has a view of the nearby Blue Mosque (see picture).

I haven't decided yet if I will bring the laptop. I wasn't planning on it, but noticed that the hotel has free wi-fi so I might bring it (if anything just to keep up on the Wild playoffs scores and fantasy baseball). Posting will either be light or non-existent through Wednesday.