Istanbul

Hello boys and girls. Sorry, for the belated blog post as we have been out of commission for a couple days now and we haven’t left our hotel room much. On our last day in Athens, Joe and I started feeling a bit sick and by the time we got into Turkey I got really worse. We think it might have been food poisoning or the stomach flu. We had to go to hospital on our very first night in Istanbul. I must say we are very impressed with Turkey’s hospital and health care system. For an emergency room visit we only paid 15.5 TL (which was the same cost as the cab fare to the hospital). We were seen by a doctor almost immediately and were promptly put in a cab with a prescription in hand. The hospital staff even gave the cab driver instructions on taking us to the pharmacy and then back to our hotel!


The thought of just calling it quits and going back home did come across our minds! This trip has definitely tested our bodies and immune systems. Hopefully, this will be the worst and the last of it!

Today, I finally felt better and we took a short walk to the beautiful Blue Mosque. After seeing many cathedrals and churches in Europe, it was refreshing to see something a little different. Across the street from the Blue Mosque, is the world famous Haghia Sophia. We are going to try and go inside the Haghia Sophia tomorrow morning. Thankfully, we still have a couple more days in Istanbul so we can still see some of the major sights. More pictures will follow soon!