Things to take

It’s 13 days until our trip to Istanbul! I am so excited! This will be our long overdue, well deserved vacation. I am counting this as our real vacation since we moved back to Seattle. I’m insisting on the fact that going to visit my parents in Thailand every 8 months for the past 4 years is not a real vacation. We were planning to go to Budapest at first, but after I looked for the flight and realized that it takes just as long to travel to Istanbul, which on our travel list, Istanbul sits higher than Budapest.

We went to a local Barnes & Noble to pick a travel book months ago. The hotel was booked since February. I decided that we’d stay in Istanbul’s New Town, north of the old town across Galata Bridge. I didn’t want to stay in the old town, even though most of everything we want to see is there. The old town is supposed to have less of a night life — not that Drew and I are going to go out partying every night. Also, the new town is supposed to have newer hotels. I read about the different neighborhood from a bunch of travel sites and read through a whole lot of reviews on several hotels. Somehow, I came across Tablet Hotels and booked Karaköy Rooms through them.

We are going to stay in Istanbul for a week. The most exciting thing about this is all the food I get to eat! Yes, we will go see Hagia Sophia, Hippodrome, Topkapi palace, the spice market, and other ‘must see’ places. However, I’m definitely most excited about the spice market.