Istanbul

I can't believe it. Twenty-eight days have passed, I must say from my perspective it went by pretty fast. We accomplished a lot, but there is still a lot of work to be done and even more follow up over the next few months. I am happy with the time I was able to steal and do a little sight seeing every now and then. The last was Istanbul, after work on Wednesday the Captain and I met up with his old RMC friend who's posted there. We got to visit the Blue Mosque, St Sophia and the grand bazaar. Had it not been raining I might have even gone to the spice bazaar. The mosque was breathtaking inside and out. I have a really neat app on my iPhone that lets me stitch photos together, so I took one inside the mosque and its looks like your standing in it looking at the entire interior. We went by St Sophia, I didn't want to have to pay to get in and prayer time was about to start so we would have been rushed through. The grand bazaar was mind boggling, its a labyrinth. I was looking for a fake Omega to replace mine which broke a year ago and isn't very reliable, the pin keeps breaking. I found a few nice ones but the price they were asking was ridiculous. They were asking about $270 Turkish Lira which is about $150 Canadian, and were about the same quality I would get on Queen St in Toronto. There was a really nice one.. possibly stolen but we wanted $300 Euro..or $400 CAD. He brought it down to 180 but there was no way I was going to pay that.  Afterwards we went to have a bite to eat, I can't say I'm a huge fan of Turkish cuisine, there is something with the meat, a spice or a marinate that reminds me of minced meat or the meat pies I used to get. Not my favorite to say the least. In all this was a great trip with no regrets. I can't wait to be on my last flight of the trip and I will be making a very planned stop at the duty free in a few hours.

Blue mosque

Blue mosque

Baklava anyone?

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

Officially a tourist for the rest of the trip

Done work and now we are going for a little tour of Istanbul. Going to the blue mosque, Sofia church and the grand bazaar which has 110+ shops. I won't be bringing much back my suitcase was full when I left.

Naples..

My first impression with Naples wasn't the best. The city had gone through a work strike over the summer and I guess things hadn't gotten back to normal. There was a lot of garbage in the streets. Unlike at home there is no garbage pick up I learned. There are garbage drop offs. Once we arrived at the current facility we were given a ride to the new one that's in construction. Sorry not allowed to take pictures. During the ride there I learned that the unemployment rate is incredibly high in Naples. There were some neighborhoods that reminded me of being in Africa they were run down and decrepit. After lunch we got a nice tour from one of the staff members there. She took us quite a ways away and it was worth it, if you look at the Naples flickr set you can see that there are areas of Naples that are quite lovely.

Today we are in Istanbul, I will post a little more after work as my experience here so far is a two hour taxi ride from the airport to the hotel approx 33kms away. Traffic is crazy here and I would go mental if I had to drive here. I can say that the city is enormous and I hope I will have a little bit of time to see the Bazaar and the Blue Mosque.

Naples

Most of you know I'm not the biggest fan of flying. The flight to Naples was less then fun, there were about twelve young men on the plane that were a little loud and annoying. Seeing as the flight was only 80mins the crew didn't do much about it. Upon arriving here it started raining and it only stops for a few minutes from rain to complete downpour. By the time I got my bags and we were in a taxi on our way to the hotel it was already night time and I could see the faint outlines of what I think are sycamore trees. Today will be pretty busy and I'll be pressed for time. This location was quite busy with NATOs involvement in Libya. The hotel here is nice and a little odd. The rooms are not attached to the hotel. Kind of reminds me of an all inclusive resort, without the all inclusive. I went for the table d'hote last night which was a fussili carbonera and balsamic vinegar pork tenderloin followed with a salad. Sorry I forgot my camera in the room so no food pictures of last nights meal. Next is Turkey and we arrive there tomorrow afternoon.

I have just uploaded a boat load of pictures including a couple food ones of our meal in Oberammagau which was delightful. MMmmm The pieces of Schnitzel were the length of my forearm.

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

Its been a busy 2 weeks and with only six days to go I am getting anxious to get home. I leave in a few hours for Naples. With any luck I will make another post later today with more content. The last few locations the internet connections are almost comparable to dial-up. That's the main reason I haven't posted much. Not to mention I have a few hundred pictures I need to filter through..
I have some nice ones of Oberammagau and Munich. I also took a few videos while in the car, because taking pictures in a moving vehicle does work a bit.

More then half done..

The work aspect of the trip is going well. We are wrapping up here in Geilenkirchen and moving onto Spangdahlem tomorrow morning. We are planning on finishing Friday around Oberammagau. This weekend was fantastic. I got a ride to Bruehl and met up with Stefan my exchange student from about 17yrs ago. This train in was a little late so I went to his parents and it was like I was only gone a few months. Stefan and his parents look great, and are in good health. Stefan older brother is running a very nice spot in Bruehl and was packed both Friday and Saturday night. Mathias, Stefan's younger brother took over his dad's architecture company two years ago and is doing well. He just finished building an apartment building with 25 apartments. Stefan and I went out on Friday night and well... we are not 17 anymore. It hurt the next day, Stefan was in worse shape then I and it was quite funny watching his mom laugh at him in the morning. Saturday we went to the Christmas market in Cologne. It was very nice and we met some of Stefan's friends and had Gluewein. That night we took it quite a bit easier and went through pictures from Stefan's south American trip. Sunday we went for a nice Greek lunch before I hopped on the train to go back to Geilenkirchen. The weekend went by way too fast and I hope its not another 20yrs before I get to see them again. I will keep in touch with Stefan more, his birthday is on Friday.

Schloss Augustusberg

Stefan

Kuster Family

Aachen Trainstation

Welcome back to Bruehl

Its been about 17yrs since I spend a wonderful 3mths here. Nothing much has changed, I still remembered how to get to the Kuesters from the train station. Last night we chatted for a bit and I showed Stefan and his parents photos from the last few years. Afterwards we went to his brothers restaurant which is backed on a Friday night. A touch I found especially nice was the dog food bowls around the restaurant as they are also welcome in his establishment. Then we went to a place called "Der Hutte" and didn't leave till 3am. I'm too old to go out that late. Not to mention the beer was inexpensive and went down way too fast. Neither of us go up till about noon. The bar was separated into two sections 40 and above were in the front chatting and drinking and 20feet further was the 20-30 age group dancing and drinking..We stayed a little in between we had a good time but now I need to do more laundry as I smell of smoke. I will be leaving Bruhl tomorrow morning by train to go back to Geilenkirchen.