Harris World Tour

Friday, November 23rd, 2018. We have moved our schedule to get up at 8:00am. It is too dark outside and seems that everyone starts late anyway. We told Sunshine that she could do homework at night but we wanted to get to the Archeology Museum early. It takes us 10 minutes to walk to the Metro. We took the funicular and then we have to pay again to connect with another metro. The cost is almost the same as taking a taxi but with traffic, it can be faster to take the metro.  We made it to Sultanhamet around 10:00ish and we were getting into the museum around 10:30am which was fine because it wasn't crowded at all. The main building is closed for restoration so we couldn't see the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great or the other major attractions. I'm not sure why Alexander is here but he is and couldn't see him! We covered different buildings and eras. We also saw a lot of sarcophagi, Egyptian and other. I think the kids enjoyed this part. Daniel got excited an...

Saturday, November 24, 2018. Today it was so hard to get up when the alarm went off! We were going to take a cruise on the Bosphorus today but we checked the weather and tomorrow is going to be better so we decided to stay home. I wanted to go back to bed after breakfast but chose to motivate and vacuum the house! What? you're thinking. Well, I guess it was driving me crazy seeing all those hairs on the white tile floor, so I did something about it. Gregory and I left around noon to try to find a photocopy place where we can print our logo so we can use it for our Instagram pics. We did find one little shop but the internet there was not working and I couldn't send them the picture. We walked around the neighborhood and found doner kebab for 5TL including a glass of ayran! That's the cheapest we've found! Afterward, Gregory went to get a haircut, don't ask me. He will write about it. [ Gregory's note : it was a haircut with a shampoo and short massage that c...

Thursday, November 22, 2018. We decided to take it super easy today. We were all tired from yesterday so I let everyone sleep in. We got up late, had a late breakfast and caught up on the blog which I haven't been able to publish due to the bad internet connection. We went to the movies to watch the latest Fantastic Beasts movie. I prepared a quick lunch of soup, cheese, and crackers so we could run to the movie theater. I asked Gregory to double check the time and I'm glad he did because, yes the movie was at 3:20 but dubbed in Turkish! Oops, that's me who checked the movie, so last minute he found the same movie playing in English in another theater. We took a taxi to the Historia Shopping Mall. I felt like I was back in the US or maybe a fancy part of Mexico. The shopping mall was big and had a lot of American Brands like Guess, American Eagle and in the food court, there was Starbucks and McDonald's -- of course. Gregory looked at the tickets he had bought. It...

Wednesday 21 November 2018. Today we got up early and took a shared taxi to Topkapi Palace. Well, the shared taxi experience was interesting. Gregory wanted to do it, because he had to see why the locals used them. Whatever -- I just wanted to get there. Last time he and I were in Istanbul, we didn't go inside the palace because we were sick and I regretted that a lot. Also, I read an awesome novel called Regards From The Dead Princess by Kenize Mourad. I highly recommended to read it before you come here and then you will understand why I was so excited to come to the palace. [Gregory's note: total chick lit -- I slogged through all the elaborate descriptions of what the entire court was wearing while the author skipped over little things like WWI.] Anyway, we hopped in a minibus with other six passengers and the driver dropped us on a corner in the Topkapi area but nowhere near the palace. When Gregory checked his Google map, it said it would take half an hour to walk!...