Istanbul: where awesome meets swank

For today's blog posting, I would like to share an email that Tori and I crafted to Liz over dinner. Characters: Tori will be playing a Canadian posing as a New Yorker and I will be playing a non-Jew. Setting: we are using our points to stay at the W (the first in Europe, BTW) and so we think we are big time. Background: Although we did see some major sights today including the something something palace and the blue mosque, we failed to mention it. If this doesn't make sense, talk to the lychee martinis that are inside my belly. And scene...


Hi Liz! Hope you are having a fabulous time at the Barcelona Fuqua reunion. Hope the hotel is fab, the tapas are tasty, and the pool involves late night swimming.

Istanbul is such a treat. Since you left us in Santorini, we have managed to find: 2 swanky dinner restaurants (so far), hummus, scallops, sushi, a Turkish version of grits for desert, earrings for 2 lira (1.30$), blue eyeliner for 1.5 lira (.90 lira), Starbucks frappucinos, a ridiculous room with a private garden that doubles as a drying rack, and a private tour of harem quarters with an 80 year old man.

"Sweat" gym was really and we found ourselves playing a familiar game: gay or European?

Full day planed for tomorrow. We are planning to go to Asia for lunch and then back to Europe for shopping at the grand bazaar. All on public transport btdubs. We are tram experts, although it is sheer luck that we were able to get tokens out of the machine that only had instructions in Turkish.

Our concierge sent us to a swank place tonight. Tors had a passion fruit caipiroska that blows Ivan's specialty out of the water. Having a personal, typed letter under our door with our meal reservations is pretty sweet. Thanks Alparslan. Sadly we are not allowed to roam the streets of Istanbul at night as it's too dangerous so we are heading home to blog.

Love you!
T&C