30 October

Another different day.
After rising early and finding no power in the room (I was to non compis mente to check the circuit breakers) I prepared and was down for breakfast by 0700. This time I remembered the Vegemite and started breakfast and was joined by Carol (after answering some emails). Our conversation was cojoined by a Canadian couple who split their time between Turkey and Canada – an interesting conversation.
My DVDs arrived and I left, as I had to find the Post Office and send most of my books back (too much weight). I eventually found it after ten minutes walking to find I could have reached it in three, which I did to return to the hotel (don’t post from Turkey if you can help it – horrendous parcel rates, but I had no choice).
Here I decided I would explore the Spice Market with Robert and Ali, so we all set off and reached it after not too many diversions. Walking through was slow as we were all taking photographs and looking at things. The disparity of “natural viagra” on sale at competing shops was interesting. The diversity of confectionary and the samples offered proved very interesting. I was drawn in to buying some small prints (which I intend to laminate and give as place mats) by others, and then bought too many as the price offered was too attractive.
We walked through more bazaar-type areas and finally ended up (after morning tea) at the Basilica Cistern. Here I left Robert to look and Ali to wait. I went to the Hippodrome and got some more pictures, then walked south-west from the Blue Mosque to the waterfront, past a lot of multi-storey wooden buildings. Walking along the waterfront I saw many more fishermen, interesting exercise equipment, barbecue spots in the middle of the lawns, the old city walls, cats with kittens, a balloon, many craft on the water and finally arrived outside the station by 1340. Here I had some lunch and got back to the hotel at 1410, where I ran into Monique (who had lost her mum) and Keith (who had lost his wife). Chris finally turned up after having walked back along the tram route.
We chatted, I went to my room and left my stuff, and decided I would have an easy and cheap afternoon. I went to the tram stop near the train station and bought a token, then caught the train to the south-western terminus, the north-eastern terminus and then back to the station. Along the way I chatted with three people – one man who had a leather business and lived mainly in Germany, a student who was studying management and wanted to become a stockbroker and a ship’s master who now handled ship sales.
When I returned to the hotel I booked a ride to the airport for tomorrow morning (I could have taken the tram, but I am past lugging everything with me if I can help it – I HAVE to do it enough without choosing to do it if I don’t have to), went to my room and reset the circuit breakers and then processed today’s photos, burned some more disks, charged batteries, wrote blogs and then finally went down to the lobby and uploaded the photos and blogs, checked emails and ended up back in my room to wash my shirts (and hope the rest of my clothes dry – which they haven’t so far) and then to bed for my last night in turkey, Istanbul and Europe!