Turkey, Part 2

Sorry that "tomorrow" ended up being quite delayed. I have gotten home from work each night and studied until I went to bed. Yes, life here is that exciting.

TURKEY

The second part of our day in Turkey we spent some time where they sell Turkish rugs. We were shown pictures of spinning the silk, weaving and then we sat with this jolly Turkish chap for about an hour as we talked about family and life. During our "chat" he would have people who work for him bring in these beautiful rugs to unroll and show us. It was a really cool picture of Middle Eastern culture, business and salesmanship. I really liked it. Meeting him reminds me in retrospect a bit like meeting the late senator Paul Wellstone - when you said where you were from, he could make some very uncanny connections to people or places he knew that were very "close to home". The difference was that Paul Wellstone was FROM Minnesota and his job was to represent Minnesota. This was a businessman from Turkey making connections with people and places we were talking about all over the US.

I'll offer you a brief synopsis of the rest of our trip:

After Ephesus, we stoped at the port in Crete. Philip had been very excited for a beach day and swimming in the Mediterranian, however we were met with rain. We got off of the ship and went into town hoping that the rain would die down. Instead, it just kept coming down harder. We made it to Starbucks, had a fix and headed back to the ship to lounge the rest of the day away.

Our final full day on the ship (Saturday) we relished the last precious moments we had of sleep, reading for entertainment, sun and eating wonderful food that required no preparation and no dishwashing afterwards.

I've put all of the trip pictures on facebook if you want a closer look there.

To say the least, we were welcomed back to the real world by plenty of stress and reality. Philip flew straight from Rome to London to Germany to have his eye surgery. I was welcomed back from a letter from work about some drastic personnel restructuring they are having to do. Things have calmed a bit, but the cruise is now but a happy memory. . .