In a week. we’ll be headed to Nairobi (with a pit stop in Valencia over the weekend). Hard to believe. Seems like we planned this latest crazy adventure a loooong time ago and suddenly it is upon us. So close, in fact, that we have completed our final training death march. (Don’t tell Steven, but there will be some post-safari death marches. I’ll give him a week (lifetime) or two to recover first.)

Saturday we walked 12.5 miles up to Ortaköy, right off the Bosphorous (like everywhere else we go). We took the Marmaray, which we have mentioned is way better for me than a ferry although it’s a 30-minute walk to the train, a 7-minute train ride, and a 10-minute walk plus three steep escalators to get out of the station.

Friday, we had discovered the fancy area near the modern art museum. You have to go through a metal detector to get to walk there and it’s full of upscale stores and restaurants, but it’s also along the water and I love walking along the water, so Saturday we went back that way and continued to the end of that area.

We just wanted a walk of at least 10 miles and we like to have a destination. Plus, baked potato that is the equivalent of nachos, but you get to pick your own toppings. Outside the mosque, there is a street lined with kumpir vendors all competing for your business (although I suspect they all work for the same company or they pool their earnings — I could be way off base with that but the number of vendors seems a little crazy compared to the amount of business.)

Steven did not want a kumpir (but he was sad when he realized what he gave up) and we wanted to sit at a real table and eat together, so we went to one of the many restaurants there. The problem with sitting down after half of a long walk is that you know you have to get up again and walk back, which we did. We have noticed that the clouds seem to roll in around 3-4 o’clock and it was just a bit chillier on the way back. This week was much warmer than last week, but our luck is over as “winter” will be back next week with temps in the high 40s to low 50s. Hard to complain when we know 90s-100s are coming soon.

Saturday night, we had dinner with our new friend, Lucien. He and his wife have moved here from Johannesburg. Rishi travels a lot for work, so she didn’t make dinner, but we had fun talking with someone outside our friend group of two. We really love meeting people in our travels since they are usually friendly and adventurous like us. We learn about life in other parts of the world and get tons of great travel ideas. Since Lucien and Rishi have lived here for a year, he gave us many excellent recommendations and then invited us for Turkish breakfast on Sunday and how could we say no to that? Hint: We didn’t! Lucien ordered breakfast for three. There were four of us, so there were a lot of leftovers, but the food was delicious. We were having such a good time, we decided to adjourn a couple of doors down for a very pre-Super Bowl drink. Next thing we knew it was 5 p.m. and we had the germ of an idea for our 2025 adventure. Let that be a surprise for now.

But, guess what? We weren’t finished with our all-day relaxation. We briefly went home because Lucien and Rishi’s cat needed her medicine and a couple of hours later, we met again for dinner. Rishis is a bit of a workaholic and she got stuck on a call, so it was the three of us again. We really like them and hope to meet up again, either this week or some time in the future.

I broke my vegetarianism because Lucien wanted me to try to the midye dolma (mussels stuffed with a spoon of rice) sold on many street corners. All you do is sprinkle a little lemon on them and they are delicious. I made up for it with a vegan burger for dinner, so order has been restored (not surprisingly, I didn’t eat any mussels and had chicken for dinner, along with Chimay Blue, an excellent Belgian beer).

Sitting around all day Sunday when our original plan was a 6-7 miles stroll made us very tired and we did not make it to the Super Bowl. Oh well. I’m sure the commercials were funny, but I’m glad I got my beauty sleep.