OK, not really home, but more familiar territory We returned to Nice Tuesday evening. Compared to Istanbul, the world seems familiar here. We can sort of understand things, systems make sense and there's a Monoprix! Before we left Istanbul, we had some last-minute eating to do. Turkish churros!(They were yummy!) Leaving Istanbul was an adventure …
Category: Travel
Last weekend in Istanbul
Sue and I had a busy week with work and all, so we decided to spend this weekend doing nothing. We woke up late, sat around drinking coffee and watched TV for three full days. Not. Friday our plan was to have street food for lunch, then head for the Dolmabahçe Palace, then walk over …
Grand shopping adventure
Have we got some advice for you! If you like us and your curiosity outstrips your taste for shopping in massive crowds, try heading to the Grand Bazaar on a Monday morning. That's what we did and it worked out great (although we didn't buy anything). Well, we did buy one thing, but it was …
Settling into Istanbul
The days here are long as we tend to get up by 9, head out for some sightseeing until 1 or 2 p.m., then home to work until 8 p.m. and then have dinner. We are generally getting to sleep between 1 and 2 a.m. Long, but really fun days. One thing to note is …
On the road again
Today, tomorrow and Saturday are all travel days. Today we drove from Clamecy to Valence and tomorrow we drive to Nice. Saturday we are off to Istanbul. We have spent the month driving our trusty ride, a Dacia Sandero, all over France. For those of you who have never heard of Dacia, it is a …
Dijon and Strasbourg and home (oh my)
Steven has taken the past couple of Fridays off for travel. This week, we weren't leaving town until Saturday so we decided to take a day trip to Dijon, about 2 hours away. We didn't know anything about Dijon except that we could probably get mustard. It turns out that Dijon is a fairly big …
Belgium, part 2
Steven graciously ceded part of the weekend travel to me (because he was too tired to write about the whole thing — yes, I was too tired to write the rest, but I will certainly take the compliment), so I finally get to tell you about something more interesting than a trip to the grocery …
This is Saturday — it must be Belgium(*)
This weekend we went to Belgium. We left “early” Friday morning – about 9:30 – and headed to Brugge. It was about a five-and-a-half-hour drive. For those who do not know, Belgium has two parts (here is brief primer on the divide). The southern part of the country is occupied by the Walloons. They call …
Into the Alps
We headed out Friday morning for a town called Chambéry. It is about 4 hours southeast of us and in the heart of the French Alps. For those of you who are fans of the Olympics, it is an hour north of Grenoble (1968) and an hour and a half west of Albertville (1992). Once …
All up in Armes
We are staying in Clamecy, but we are here because of my dear high school friend, Suzanne. She does not live in Clamecy, but next door in Armes. We drove there a few times, but today we first walked (it is about 3 miles but it is up hill in the driving snow both ways!) …
Doing It On The Road 