Istanbul Update

Just wanted to give a quick update of what is happening here in Istanbul. Things are busy but I will try to post as often as possible!

I'm working with a big mix of people - one from Greece, France, Brazil, Ireland, Spain, Turkey, and Venezuela. Everyone makes fun of how each other speaks English, and it's pretty funny.

A few random/interesting things that came to my mind:

- We stay in Europe and work in Asia, crossing the border every morning and evening!
- The food in the Coke cafeteria is amazing! We eat lunch there everyday and it's home cooked and delicious Turkish cuisine
- I found a tennis buddy, one of the girls from Ireland plays and we are going to try to play each week in an indoor court
- Traffic is crazy, and people drive crazy.
- Our hotel has parties Wed-Sat nights, and it basically turns into a club, and I can hear the beat slightly when I go to sleep. It's apparently the happening place to be in Istanbul on Wed nights. We went on Wed and there were many famous Turkish people there.

We've been busy so far, already gone to see a dance performance of Troy, went to the Wed night party/club at our hotel, hit the shopping malls in Istanbul (the girls are shopping maniacs). I really like the food here in general, and hope I don't put on too much weight! They have the best rice, I think that's my favorite thing, any kind of meat/chicken with rice.

Over the weekend we flew to Cappadocia (in Turkey), which is an area closer to the center of the country with amazing landscape. I'll send some pictures soon. It's described as an area with unique moon-like landscape, underground cities, and cave churches. We stayed at an amazing hotel inside of a cave. We were pretty much the only people staying at the hotel and had the whole place to ourselves. The hotel staff made us home cooked meals each night and we had our own living room to watch DVDs, etc. It was a great first CAD weekend! I'll send pics soon.

It rained/snowed in Cappadocia, but we still toured the area but couldn't do the hot air balloon ride that we were hoping to do. Our future weekend plans are: two weekends here in Istanbul, Izmir/Ephesus (Turkey), Athens, a spa weekend, and possibly a ski resort.

So I am really enjoying my new job/life and look forward to the adventures ahead! Hope everyone is well!